Inferno
by orionauriga
Summary: Adi Morris has fire. Peter Pan likes fire. But she's prepared to use that fire against him if it means keeping her freedom. None of it should be real, but Neverland is a fairy tale that begins to feel like home. And it doesn't take long for the island's malicious nature to do what it does best. After all, evil isn't born. It's made. [COMPLETED]
1. Out of Place

**1.01 | Out of Place**

"Come away little light,  
come away to the darkness;  
in the shade of the night we'll come looking for you."  
Come Away to the Water - Maroon 5

* * *

THERE WERE MANY ways Adi envisioned the early morning hours of her seventeenth birthday. Being magically transported to a mythical island that only existed in fairy tales was definitely not on that list. If she had known it was even an option, she would have done everything in her power to avoid that.

But fate had an irritating habit of forcing things to happen no matter how much she resisted.

Midnight in Storybrooke, Maine on a chilly night like the seventeenth of November was so harsh and definite it could have swallowed the entire street whole if not for the street lamps pushing back against the darkness. Those street lamps cast a warbled reflection of orange across the inky black waves of the Atlantic, the only source of light save for the stars.

Adeline Morris knew the stars well. From her careful perch at the end of the dock, she could easily make out the telltale pentagon of Auriga, Orion's sword and shield, the misshapen W of Cassiopeia. And then there were her favorites, the ones a little harder to spot: Lynx and Perseus and Taurus, hidden among the easily visible constellations.

Right above her, thick clouds blanketed the heavens, but they cut off abruptly where the ocean began so that she could see the celestial beings to the east.

Her stars glittered against the sea, pinpricks of light against an enormous blanket of ebony; this, it seemed, was the one thing that belonged only to her. These peaceful, lonesome nights were where she sought refuge from the chaotic mess of her life. No one could touch her here.

To Adi's right, one of the boats tied to the pier knocked against the wood. The hollow echo it produced sounded like a shout into the night that would wake the entire town. She flinched, but nothing else moved.

Shaking her head slightly, she turned her gaze back to the sky. Her breath came out in a cloud of fog and disappeared in the air above her. An offering to the stars.

Down here, she couldn't help but feel insignificant - even more than usual - but they made her feel at home, like she really belonged on Earth, beneath the constellations she knew so well.

At least, she thought she knew them well.

A little above the twin stars of Gemini was a third object. At first, Adi had disregarded it as Venus, but as she flipped open the book of star charts from the bag by her side, she realized Venus was in orbit below Earth's horizon. Meaning it shouldn't be visible.

Meaning there was something extra that didn't belong in the middle of a constellation that had been there for billions of years.

Abruptly, Adi stood, still gripping the thick, well-worn paperback in trembling hands. It wasn't a star - stars twinkled, and this thing was definitely stationary. Well, she thought that - until it flickered. In and out of existence, the object shimmered, for lack of a better word, among the rest of the sky.

"What?" she whispered aloud, furrowing her brow. As if the single word triggered it, the thing reappeared once more and stayed there, neither twinkling nor disappearing.

As Adi kept staring at it, mouth half open in equal wonder and confusion, she couldn't help but feel a strange sort of connection to it. Like her, it was out of place in a well-working system. Neither of them fit, and both stuck out because they didn't belong.

The thin film of snow that blanketed the ground shifted as she pivoted on the spot, head tilted back so she could see the rest of the sky. Everything else seemed to be in place. Adi blinked into the few flakes falling from the sky, wondering if perhaps she was simply tired, and tomorrow night that thing would be gone.

A sharp, tinny beep cut through the still air. Adi flinched a little, but relaxed when she realized it was only her phone: she had set an alarm for 12:41 in the morning, the exact time she was born. She had a slight superstition about making a wish at that time every year on her birthday, one that was especially hard to shake.

Adi spoke her wish into the cold, snowy air, and imagined the letters falling like snowflakes into the water before her. "I want to be free, and I want to belong."

Silence.

She wasn't sure what she expected. Nothing ever happened when she made her yearly wishes, and none of them had ever come true. But something about tonight felt different.

When nothing else happened, she sighed and shoved her star map book back into her bag and sat back down.

That thing was flickering again, like some kind of beacon reaching out to her.

And then, just when Adi let out a sigh of frustration, every single streetlamp flickered out. The pier and road behind it fell into a sea of darkness, with only the stars for illumination.

Adi froze. The snow began to fall harder, dotting her dark hair and clothes white as she stared around her for a source of the disruption. Nothing. Empty air and the gentle crash of waves against the pier.

Shuffling through her bag for her phone, she was surprised to come up empty handed. Not two minutes ago had she last had it. Adi ran her hand over the icy dock around her - maybe she'd set it down there - but all she found was a single gold coin.

It was a strange thing (almost as strange as the unknown sky object; UFO, she was beginning to call it), copper and tarnished with a hole punched clean through the middle and thinly carved waves all across the bottom half. The top had microscopic circles here and there, representing what she assumed were stars. And on the other side, she could just barely make out the minuscule script in the metal, a single word: _never_.

Adi frowned. There was no way that had been there before - she always checked the area around her for chewed up gum and trash before she sat down.

Humming curiously, she muttered, "Never," under her breath as she turned the coin around and around in her fingers.

Her mouth was the gun and the word the trigger. In an abrupt, almost robotic motion, she moved, unsure if the actions were hers or were forced upon her by an outside force. Unconsciously, she pushed the coin up to her eye so that she was looking directly through the hole in the middle, the UFO in the center of her vision. It aligned perfectly.

"Never," she breathed again, but the word was not her own.

The moment it left her lips, Adi crumpled to the ground, dark hair splayed out on the snowy dock, coin still clutched tightly in hand, the stars twinkling innocently down on her.

Then, simultaneously, both she and the object that shouldn't have been in the sky disappeared, leaving only the slight imprint of her body swirled into the snow and a half-open backpack behind.

* * *

Peter halted mid-note when a strange sensation came over him, one he hadn't felt in a long time: the feeling of someone arriving on his island. That was impossible - no one could come or go without his permission. He hadn't sent his shadow for a new boy, and he certainly hadn't allowed just anyone to come without his consent.

Troubled, he left his boys chatting happily around the fire - they didn't even notice the cessation of music, nor did they pay attention as he disappeared from camp and reappeared in the middle of the forest, following the mental map of the island laid out in his head.

It was dark, hard to make out at first, but as his eyes adjusted to the shadows, Peter was able to make it out: the crumpled form of a person covered in an odd white substance - snow? He couldn't tell, for he hadn't seen it in centuries - and dressed in the weirdest clothes he had ever seen.

He reached out to touch the person, pushing on their shoulder so that they rolled back, face up in the dirt. Upon seeing their face, Peter recoiled as if burned by their skin.

It was a girl.

Her skin was pale as ice, hair an odd shade caught between black and brown, eyelids fluttering frantically as if she sensed his presence even in her stupor. And her clothes were different than any he'd ever seen on a female: the unusual tight pants adorning her legs, black jacket zipped halfway up, revealing a shirt of the same color underneath.

She was dusted in a thin layer of snow that speckled her hair and dark clothes but was quickly melting in the humid heat of Neverland. Her left hand was clenched tightly around something.

Though still and comatose, Peter remained wary of the girl. No one entered his island without his agreement, and she was no exception. There had to be something different about her.

He dug further into his mental map, looked deeper into the outline of the body in front of him, and was stunned he'd missed it before. Blatantly, she radiated of magic. The dark-haired girl lying helplessly at his feet was full of the stuff; it pulsed intensely through her veins like a wildfire.

Peter leaned down, though her presence was unwanted and her skin cold as ice, and picked her up like a child.

He appeared back in camp with her in his arms, and was glad to see that the majority of the boys had already gone off to bed in their respective tree huts; only Felix remained. His hood was pulled down, pooling around his shoulders, and he stared around in confusion when he heard the rush of wind that signaled Peter's return.

An expression of equal perplexity and dismay flitted across the second-in-command's angular face as he rose from his perch on a log and stepped beside Peter.

The girl fidgeted restlessly, like she could sense the proximity of the two who held the most power on the entire island and was nervous to be powerless in front of them.

"What the hell?" Felix managed, glancing from Peter's face to hers and back again. "When did you send for her?"

Peter shook his head. "I didn't. She got here on her own."

Felix responded while reaching for her left hand, which was still clenched into a fist and rested on her stomach. "Is that even possible?" he questioned, prying open her fingers to reveal a rusted copper coin with a hole through the center. Waves were engraved into one side with a fine knife, while the other displayed a single word. "Never," he read, furrowing his brow in confusion. Peter, on the other hand, paled like he was going to be sick.

"So that's how she did it," Peter murmured, astonished, as he set the girl down in the space between Felix and himself and took the coin. She stilled the moment she was out of his grip. "The question is, how did it come into her possession?"

Though he was slightly afraid to ask, Felix did anyway. "Peter, what is that?"

Peter only shook his head as his eyes traced the outline of the coin. Then he blinked, drawing himself from his daze. "Before I became as powerful as I am now, I would travel between realms with this. Once I learned enough to do it on my own, it disappeared - I never knew what happened to it. I just want to know how she has it."

"Does she have magic?"

"An arsenal," Peter confirmed, not taking his eyes off of the metal. "I don't know what world she's from, but I do believe she is powerful enough to summon it and use it to her advantage. Its magic works no matter what realm the user is in, as long as they hold their own magic. I think she - " He didn't get to finish his sentence.

"If you wanted to know, you could've just asked," a sudden voice muttered. Both boys looked down, mentally cursing for not realizing that their guest had risen. She sat calmly on the dirt, watching their conversation as if it were a mildly interesting television program. Then she hauled herself up and crossed her arms over her chest.

Now that she was awake, the girl held herself with a surprising air of composure Peter was impressed she even had the will to summon. But he didn't miss the nervous flitting of her icy blue eyes back and forth between him and Felix and the chaotic camp and the foreign place she was so suddenly thrust into.

She leaned heavily on her right leg so her entire body curved and her back arched in a slight yet uncomfortable slouch. As she spoke, she shifted her weight from left to right and back again, never once standing up straight.

Despite her suspicion, her chin still rose and she leveled Peter with a cold stare. It was different in a refreshing way. Every boy he'd brought to Neverland either cried or ran or panicked.

"Where the hell am I?" she demanded, looking between the two with raised eyebrows. A wild determination flickered in the abrupt tensing of her muscles.

Peter and Felix shared a glance and the former locked eyes with her, a wry grin twitching at his mouth as he spoke. "Neverland."

A pause. Her blue gaze flickered from Peter to Felix and back, and then she let out a short laugh. "You're kidding, right?" If there was humor to the situation, she failed to see it. When neither of them said anything, her eyes widened. "Please tell me you're joking."

"Afraid not," Peter sighed dramatically. "I'm Pan. Peter Pan. This is Felix."

"I - what?" she blinked, running a hand through her hair and shaking her head. "Okay, you're definitely not being serous right now."

Pursing his lips, Peter fixed her with a hard glare. "I assure you, we are. What's your name?"

Her mouth half opened while she hesitated, like she was trying to decide if she should trust them with something so valuable. "Adi Morris. Well, Adeline, actually, but I don't go by that."

Something about the way she spoke, the way she held herself struck a chord of familiarity inside Peter. The name Adeline, however, wasn't one he knew, so he dismissed the notion.

"Alright, Adeline, where are you from?"

Perhaps starting with the basic questions would make her calm down a little. Lots of the new boys tended to feel more comfortable once they became acquainted with each other. But Peter hadn't really spoken to a girl as an equal in forever - and this one was especially unpredictable. Factor in her magic and he had the equivalent to a bomb in front of him.

"Uh...Maine?" Adeline phrased it like a question, uncertain. Strange. Usually people were quite sure about where they came from.

Peter tilted his head to the side. "Where?"

"Storybrooke, Maine? America? Earth?"

"Oh - the Land Without Magic."

"Are you implying that there's...magic...everywhere else except Earth?" She shifted her weight to her left, baffled.

Peter shrugged offhandedly. "Essentially, yes."

The majority of his boys had come from magic-bearing realms, usually the Enchanted Forest. But the few from the Land Without Magic all had the same preconception about Peter Pan: he was a simple fairy tale, and when they wished for his shadow to take them away, they failed to realize they were actually calling his real shadow to do so. Quite the shock for them to see the truth, but it didn't take them long to warm up to the island. Young boys have the tendency to believe anything.

Adeline, however, wasn't a young boy, and looked paler than before, like she was going to be ill.

"So...you're Peter Pan. That's Felix. I'm in a place with magic."

"Yes," Felix replied. Though he barely spoke, he watched the two interact with a vague interest.

She continued as if she hadn't actually registered his confirmation. "But you're a fairy tale. You're supposed to be some eternally young nine-year-old in green tights and a hat that helps people when they're crushed by responsibility, or whatever."

"Sorry to disappoint," Peter snorted. "Somehow I find it hard to believe you actually wanted a nine-year-old to save you."

At his last two words, Adeline's head snapped up like she'd been shocked. "I don't need anyone to save me, Peter Pan," she spat his poisonous name in his face. "And I didn't ask to be here."

"No, you didn't. Not directly, at least. But you internally wanted it enough or you wouldn't be here in the first place. You know how you got here? Magic. If you don't want to believe in it, so be it. But it's what runs this place, and you're going to have quite a hard time here if you refuse to accept that."

"I'm sorry," Adeline glared at him. "You seem to be under the impression that I'm going to be staying. What the hell makes you think that? I woke up less than five minutes ago, and I've already managed to start yelling at you. Bad omen, if you ask me."

Peter laughed. "You of all people managed to summon a magical coin in a non-magical world, and then used it to transport yourself here. Of all the realms available to you, you ended up in Neverland. There's something important about you, Adeline Morris, and I intend to find out what."

"Who cares? If I leave, it won't be your problem anymore. Your perfect little island will go back to the insane Lord of the Flies place it probably is during the day. You don't need me."

Adeline lunged forward toward where she knew the coin that had brought her to Neverland was: in Peter's left hand. She was fast, but he was faster.

At her sudden movement, he disappeared and reappeared behind her so she fell on empty air with a grunt of surprise. She whirled around, breathing hard, to see Peter holding the coin between his first and middle fingers. He winked, shot her a mischievous smirk, and it vanished.

"Whoops," Peter feigned sympathy. "Looks like you're stuck here."

"You - " It seemed to occur to Adeline that her frustration was only fueling him. She let out a slow, steady exhale and let her eyes flutter shut. Silence. Then she opened her eyes and, though they were blazing like the cobalt inside of a flame, her voice was much more controlled. "I don't know what you think you have to gain from me being here, but I doubt it will be much."

"Actually, love, you were the one who asked to be somewhere else."

It was a guess. It was what most of the boys wished for - freedom from their mundane, boring lives surrounded by irritating adults demanding that they grow up and stop acting so childish. Peter could only guess she was the same.

Apparently, she was.

"So what if I did?"

Peter's face broke out into an easy smile. "I think you'll fit perfectly here. Just give it a chance. Not like you have much choice."

Adeline stiffened. "Fine," she said through gritted teeth, like the word itself was difficult to choke out. "But if I were you, I wouldn't expect much."

Already, Peter could tell that this girl wasn't like the others from the Land Without Magic. No one had ever been able to hold their own against him for so long, much less minutes after regaining consciousness in an unfamiliar place.

Unless, of course, she wasn't from Earth at all. There were many ways to find out, and far worse games to play.

"Oh, trust me. I am."

 _Your move, Adeline_.

* * *

Of all the interesting places in Storybrooke, Henry Mills quite liked the simplicity of the ocean. He, of course, couldn't swim in it in the chilly onset of winter, but he could stand at the edge of the dock and pretend summer was coming soon.

Summer meant freedom. Henry really wanted freedom.

Not that he could complain. He _was_ in a town where he knew every citizen, where said citizens were fairy tales from the Enchanted Forest. They didn't belong on Earth - he was the only one who did. Henry thought it was the coolest thing ever. Really. Ever.

It had snowed last night. Not a lot, but enough to delay the start of school and give him time to take a walk around Storybrooke before he had to go to class.

Henry's sneaker-clad feet slapped against the icy concrete as he made his way down the street, steaming Styrofoam cup of hot chocolate threatening to spill over with every step. A few of the marshmallows had dissolved already, but he had backups: the seven-year-old had shoved a couple extra into his pocket for when the time came that he ran out.

His mother called him a smart kid. He was just prepared.

A few people called out greetings to him as he walked by, and he returned with a couple of waves. Being the mayor's son meant everyone recognized him, and Henry wasn't entirely sure if that was a good thing or not.

When he reached the end of the dock, Henry discovered something rather curious. Setting his cocoa down in the half inch of snow, he picked up the ownerless bag sitting alone on the pier. Beneath his feet was a strange disturbance in the slush, but nothing more than that.

Henry raised his head up to check if anyone was nearby. Clear.

Carefully, like the cloth was made of glass, he rifled through it: a book about space, a half-empty water bottle, some gum, a cracked phone, a couple pens, a set of keys.

For a moment, Henry paused, debating, and then opted to pick up the keys by the violet lanyard they were strung on. Amid three differently shaped keys and a keychain shaped like a flower, he found a thin red wallet.

Part of him felt guilty, but the other half consoled him by reminding him that he would be able to find the owner a lot easier this way. Besides, someone could steal their stuff - not that a bunch of empty granola bar wrappers would do a thief much good.

The ID tucked into the clear plastic sleeve inside the wallet displayed a face he knew well: Adi Morris. The girl he had never heard speak, but whenever he passed her, he swore the air grew warmer. Like her skin was a furnace. Her dark hair was much shorter in the photo, wide smile on her face, pale skin almost glowing against the flash.

Henry knew Adi never went anywhere without her bag - wherever he happened to see her, it was over her shoulder, one hand clutching the strap like it was the very thing that grounded her to the earth.

She wouldn't have just left it.

Then Henry went to look at the sky. It was relatively clear to the east, where the sun had risen but was hazy through a thin layer of clouds that settled low on the horizon, and the rest of the heavens were pale blue.

That was when he saw it: a brightly glowing object, the only star left out of millions, twinkling innocently at Henry as he stood there with the beige backpack of a missing girl clutched in hand. It hit him suddenly, like a punch to the stomach - Adi was gone. Henry wasn't entirely sure where, but she was out, maybe somewhere she could be her old self from the Once Upon a Time book. Before the curse hit. Before her life was ripped away from her.

Not like she had a particularly exciting one in the Enchanted Forest.

Perhaps this was Adi's chance to start over, away from all she knew. Henry didn't know much about her, but based on her pre-curse life in the Enchanted Forest and the few things he was aware of, she needed to be somewhere else. Somewhere away from his mother.

Henry slung her bag over his shoulder and didn't look back at the object twinkling in the sky as he began the walk toward school.

It didn't look back either, for it had disappeared.

* * *

 **sorry, bit of a boring beginning but stuff has to happen so i can set certain things up. i'm really excited for this bc i love adi so much**

 **also: if you're confused at all, this is in third person, but the point of view shifts a few times. so when adi is speaking, she's adi and pan is pan. but when pan is speaking, she's adeline and he's peter. just a lil fyi in case you didn't pick up on that**


	2. She Can Shoot

1.02 | She Can Shoot

"If you wanna start a fight,  
you'd better throw the first punch;  
make it a good one."  
The Good, the Bad, and the Dirty - Panic! at the Disco

* * *

WHEN FACED WITH an unfamiliar and potentially dangerous situation, the normal human usually experiences two reactions: fight or flight; violence or escape.

Adi was a fighter. That much she knew. Not necessarily with her fists, but in the way she spoke: short sentences, angry retorts, sarcastic comebacks. It was her defense mechanism.

But Neverland? Peter Pan? Magic? Definitely not on her list of plausible happenings.

So, naturally, Adi had zero idea how she was supposed to react when Pan took her into one of the cabins built high into the trees and told her this would be where she'd be sleeping.

In the same room as him.

So what if he was slightly attractive? That went away the moment Adi realized how irritatingly arrogant he was. Peter Pan studied her like she was a code to be cracked, but she liked to believe she was more complicated than that; she wished him luck in his attempts to break her.

The room was bare: a low cot in each corner, chest of drawers at the foot of it, and a flat table with books and knives and other various objects piled haphazardly atop it pressed into the wall opposite the end of the first bed. A few candles flickered throughout the room, painting shadows across the walls.

"Let me get this straight. I wake up in some weird place, meet a couple of random boys - who, get this, are freaking fairy tale characters - who then want me to be roommates with one of them. Do you even hear this? Is it only me who thinks this sounds insane?"

Pan blinked. "Yes."

Adi tilted her head to the side and stared at him, unable to comprehend his audacity. "Clearly, you haven't been around me enough to read between the lines, so I'll spell it out: I'm not sleeping in the same room as you."

"Okay," he said, shrugging and taking a step closer to her. "I'll leave you on your own. You'll be all alone in the dark woods, the jungle of an island you know virtually nothing about. Who knows what could be out there. Well, I guess you'll just have to find out, won't you?"

As Pan spoke, he took careful movements closer to Adi until she was rigidly in place, head tilted back so she could look directly into his eyes. He knew exactly what he was doing: picking out what made her nervous and amplifying it to force her to comply.

" _You_ know what's out there."

"I do. Why do you think I asked that you stay with me?"

 _Because you're afraid. Of me. Of what you think I might do. I'm unpredictable, and that scares you_.

"Because you're a creep."

"Not the word I'd use, but to each their own." Pan narrowed his eyes but let out a small chuckle. Finally, he took a step back and let Adi have her personal space back. She'd never admit it, but it was a big relief to have those five feet between them.

"Alright, can I sleep now, or are you just going to stare at me all night?"

Pan put his hands up in surrender and turned away. Adi stared after him for a moment with narrowed eyes, but when she saw he wasn't going to retort with anything else, turned around herself and pulled the covers down from her cot.

It was a spongy mattress, low to the floor and blanketed in a thin sheet with a heavier quilt over top. Surprisingly comfortable.

Adi sat on the edge and toed off her Converse, pulled off her jacket, and tugged all of her hair to her right shoulder.

For a moment, she sat there and stared at the end of her hair, dark against her black shirt and frizzy in the humidity of the island. It seemed like so long ago that she had showered and run a brush through it - but in reality, it was only yesterday.

Yesterday. It seemed so far away.

Adi snapped back into reality when she felt Pan's gaze on her. "I'm sleeping now," she stated icily. "You even think about touching me, I'll vaporize you where you stand."

An empty threat – both of them knew it – but saying the words aloud made her feel like she might be able to.

In reply, he extinguished the candles illuminating the room, but not before shooting her an arrogant smirk. "I'd love to see you try, Adeline."

They both laid there in the dark for what felt like hours. Adi's blood was boiling - partly because she didn't want to sleep in the same room as some person she'd just met, partly because said person had already figured out how to get under her skin.

As she rolled over to get more comfortable, she attempted to ignore the haunting whispers of the jungle against the walls of Pan's cabin. Every rustle was an awful reminder that she was stuck in this strange place, on this mysterious island until she found a way out.

Adi could only hope that there was a way out at all.

* * *

The worst part about waking up was that it finally sunk in that Adi was definitely, completely, and very much awake. Neverland was not a dream, Peter Pan was not a dream, everything she'd done was entirely real. That was perhaps the most terrifying part of her morning.

The second most terrifying thing: Pan was nowhere to be found.

His absence could mean a lot of things, but the worst by far was that Adi had no idea where she was, who else inhabited the island, or what other kinds of trouble she could manage to get herself into. The possibilities were endless.

There was no way she was simply going to sit in the cabin until Pan or some other thing came to find her, so Adi stood to pull her shoes back on.

By her sneakers and discarded jacket lay a pile of fabric that hadn't been there last night. When she unfolded it, she discovered it was a thin, loose black shirt exactly like the one Felix had worn last night.

Something shifted inside of her.

Immediately, she recognized that this was Pan's way of reaffirming that she belonged to the island now. To him. The thought made her nauseous.

She was a person - she didn't belong to anyone except herself. Adi wrinkled her nose in disgust and opted to stay in the clothes she'd arrived in instead.

Something made her hesitate to leave the shelter of the room, but one look at Pan's disheveled bed sent her crossing the room in a matter of steps to wrench open the door. Blinking in the sudden sunlight, she descended the ladder and turned around to survey the compound.

It looked different in daylight. Not as many shadows flickering behind corners like angry demons waiting for the opportunity to strike. In fact, if Adi didn't know better, she'd say it was a normal, run-of-the-mill campsite - if not for the weapons and various teenage boys handling said weapons casually, like toys.

Adi shifted uncomfortably as she scanned the area. Three of the boys had paused in their actions and turned to face her; two fair-skinned with chocolate hair and the other caramel-skinned with an intense gaze. The latter beckoned her over.

After half a second of hesitation, she shook a few stray curls from her forehead and walked over to join them.

The first was a few years older than Adi, sun kissed skin and sparkling brown eyes, unsmiling as he appraised her with a cold expression. Second, green irises and a wide grin as he reached out to shake her hand. Third, younger, intense dark gaze and of Middle Eastern descent, wide shoulders and a mischievous grin at the corners of his mouth.

"You must be Adi," the second said. "Pan told us you arrived last night. Asked us to welcome you, or whatever."

"Or whatever?" she repeated, unimpressed. "That's vague."

He shot her a genuine smile. "At least I know what I'm doing. Nice to meet you. I'm Slightly."

"Cool name," she commented, then turned her attention to the other two, both who had expressionless looks on their faces. "You guys going to introduce yourselves, or are you just gonna stare at me all day?"

The dark-skinned one cocked his head to one side and pointed at her, nodding a little bit. "Yeah. I like you. I'm Ace."

All three of them turned to look at the remaining teenager, the oldest who looked like he couldn't decide if he wanted to shake Adi's hand or slap her in the face. "Tootles."

How he managed to say a name like that with such a sour expression impressed even Adi.

"Well, don't sound so excited, there, Tootles."

The boy in question raised his eyebrows at her challengingly, but Ace placed a hand on his shoulder and the expression dropped.

"Here for five minutes and you've already managed to scare off the first people you've met," a sudden voice rang out from behind her, one she knew well. "Must be a new record."

"Really?" Adi asked without turning around, keeping her gaze fixated on Tootles, who suddenly looked intrigued at the way she spoke to Pan. "And here I thought I was being personable."

"Her? Scary?" Tootles almost snorted. "You've gotta be kidding me, Pan."

"Hey!" Adi interrupted. "I could take you down in three seconds if I really wanted to, kid."

He scrunched his eyebrows together and glared at her. "Pretty sure I'm older than you, and - "

"Could you two please cut it out?" Slightly sighed over Tootles' voice.

"You're right, Slightly. I have something else for Adeline to do instead of argue with you boys," Pan said. Adi had her back to him, so he reached forward to grip her by the shoulder and whirl her around so she faced him. Immediately, she stepped back to get him off of her, irritated.

In his left hand was a finely carved wooden recurve bow and a single arrow. Pan offered them to her.

"What, you want me to shoot it?"

"What gave it away?"

"Sarcasm isn't a good look on you," Adi snapped as she took both of the items from him.

"I agree." Pan half grinned. "Looks better on you."

From behind her, Adi heard Tootles' sharp exhale as Pan gripped her by the arm again and led her a few feet away to where a small collection of wooden targets with peeling red and white paint were leaned up against trees at the edge of the camp's boundary. Vaguely, she registered Pan calling the rest of the boys she still had yet to meet to attention, but she was too busy stringing the arrow to notice.

The action felt familiar. Like she'd done it before. Deja vu washed over her like a cold shower, but a new, bodiless voice snapped her out of it.

"Don't give her too much credit, Pan."

A few chuckles.

"You know what?" Adi dared to ask aloud into the silence while her back was still to the rest of Pan's boys. "You're right. I mean, I couldn't possibly shoot a damn arrow with all this estrogen, right?"

Every archer she had seen on television flashed through her mind (maybe Oliver Queen and Allison Argent triggered her that sense of familiarity) as she raised the bow and pulled back the string. It creaked under her grip, and she closed her right eye and stared down the arrow's shaft with her left.

There was a pause in which it was just Adi and the arrow and the breeze whistling through her hair and the sweat on her palms. Then one of the boys snickered. Something like wildfire shot through her and she let the arrow fly.

 _Fallon fingered the grip of her newly constructed bow and frowned - something was off. Though it was hard for her to tell what, she simply knew. But Killian was waiting for her to try, so she had to deal with it._

 _Like she always did._

 _Sighing, Fallon pushed one of the hollow arrows onto the thin twine that served as the bowstring and pulled it back, lining it up with her eye. Killian had told her to look down the tip and her aim would improve with time._

 _To be completely honest, she was afraid to see what exactly it was she had to improve from. The bow was a new instrument to her, and after three days of whittling and carving, it still didn't sit in her hands correctly._

 _"Come on, Fallon, we don't have all day."_

 _She rolled her eyes at her brother. "Yeah we do."_

 _She aligned her shaking hands up with the target she had hastily carved into the lower mast with a knife and pulled her lip between her teeth. Her grip was slick with perspiration._

 _The arrow rocketed out of its place and sailed unceremoniously past the mast, instead embedding itself into the wood of the port side._

 _Both siblings cringed._

 _"Sorry 'bout that, Killian." Fallon didn't sound sorry in the least._

 _He took a swig of rum and sighed exasperatedly as she took another shot; this time the arrow landed in the water below the Jolly Roger and disappeared below the surface, weighed down by its iron tip._

 _Fallon put the bow down and stared at the ripples that marked where her arrow had been. "Whoops."_

Adi's arrow slammed into the thin circle of white ringing around the red middle, so close to a bullseye she could taste it. It took her a moment to realize she had been biting her lip so hard it was starting to bleed, and another moment to remember the doubt of the boys behind her.

Smiling victoriously, Adi spun around on her heel and handed the bow back to Pan. "Sorry, what was that about not giving me too much credit?"

No response. Adi smirked.

Pan was grinning widely at her. "And that, Adeline, is exactly the attitude I've been looking for." Something about the way he said it shot chills down her spine; if it was noticeable, he gave no indication as he kept speaking. "But I'm sure that's not all you're good at."

"It's not." Suddenly, all she felt was uncomfortable.

Slightly seemed to sense this and stepped forward to grasp Adi by the shoulder. She didn't cringe away from him.

"Pan, why don't I show Adi around? Let her get to know the place a little bit."

Although she was turned the other way, Adi assumed the leader nodded, as Slightly led her back over to the other two from before: Ace and Tootles. The former had dropped the facade of mystery he had tried to summon earlier when they had first met; the latter, however, had not. Adi was beginning to wonder if Tootles' face was permanently stuck like that.

"So, what are you three, the welcome committee?"

She'd meant it in a teasing matter, but Slightly shrugged and nodded. "More or less, yeah. There's me, the tour guide; Ace, the weapons master; and Tootles, the one who makes sure you know how to act."

Adi attempted to hide the fact that things were still surprising her. Neverland, Peter Pan, weapons, fifteen or so teenage boys, welcome committees. Some kid trying to fix her personality wasn't going to faze her.

"Right," she replied, rolling her shoulders back. "What's first?"

"This," he said as he pulled a wrinkled piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to Adi. While she unfolded it, he muttered something to the other two and they wandered off, back to whatever it was they were doing before she arrived. "Okay, so. That's a map of the island. Everything's labeled, and to scale for the most part."

The paper was more like parchment, beige and rumpled and ripped around the corners and penned in a heavy black ink that was smudged here and there. An intricately drawn compass encompassed the majority of the bottom left corner, and _Neverland_ was scripted in the top left.

Strangest of all, however, was the fact that the western side was blotted out as if someone had spilled ink all over it and neglected to draw a new map. The eastern half was fine: clearly labeled in perfect penmanship were things like the forest, the beach, the camp, the cliff, the mountain.

"What happened to that side?"

"We call it uncharted territory. We don't go there. The eastern half is all ours, though, and it's a lot bigger than you'd think."

"And this mountain - Neverpeak? Half of it's to the west. Do you only go on one side of it, or...?"

"Oh, none of us ever really go there. Mainly just the woods and the beach. And camp. Duh. Because that's where we are right now. Camp," Slightly explained, finishing with a huge grin.

Adi shifted her weight back to her right leg and traced her finger along the outline of the boundary between the east and west.

"You can keep that, if you want," he continued. "And use it when you're actually navigating the island, or whatever. Cause it's kinda hard to understand while you're just standing here. Anyway, whenever you're ready, Ace can start teaching you about weapons."

"Yeah, you mentioned," Adi shot him a weak smile. "But what exactly are the weapons for? What's the point of them if it's only us?"

For half a second, Slightly's entire countenance faltered. "It's just what we do, you know? We train with the weapons and play games with them. Pan has us make our own, actually. Yours will probably be a bow, considering."

"Play games with them?" she repeated incredulously. "But you don't get hurt, right?"

"That's part of the fun. You'll see, trust me - it's a lot better than you might think." When Slightly saw Adi still didn't look completely convinced, he leaned in closer to her and looked her directly in the eyes. Like he understood, like he too had been in her same position. "Look, I get it: everything is new and weird and you don't like change. But you wouldn't still be here if you weren't important, so you might as well get used to it. Besides, there aren't any adults here to tell you what to do. Barely any rules or guidelines or restrictions - we practically have complete freedom."

Adi shrugged. "This is better than where I was before, so, yeah. Guess you're right, Slightly."

"I always am." Slightly nodded gravely. "It's a horrible burden, but somehow I manage."

* * *

Peter tapped his foot anxiously against the wood of his cabin. In the dead silence, the noise seemed to echo outside and mingle with the feral shouts of his boys around the compound.

Every so often, he flipped another page, scanning it for information before turning the next one until he found what he was looking for. He'd gotten through the majority of the first half of it, but he couldn't remember what the chronological order of events was. So he was stuck with reading every single page until he found it.

Her.

The vague memory of the book - Peter had only read it once, when he'd first called Neverland home - was triggered by Adeline's presence. She was undeniably familiar, but Peter couldn't place a name to it. It was on the tip of his tongue but every time he tried to spit it out it crawled further back into his throat.

It - she - was infuriating.

Page fifty-seven was his lucky story: the beginning of the Jones' tale. Peter had to fight back a smirk as he scanned over Liam's death, - his fault - Killian's transformation out of vengeance, - also his fault - and Fallon's sudden hunger for blood. Also, technically, Peter's fault.

A lot of things were his fault. It was his claim to fame.

As Peter progressed into their lives, he began to remember who it was that reminded him of Adi.

Fallon Jones, youngest sister of Liam and Killian. Before her eldest brother died, the smile never left her perfectly innocent face, the impeccable braid down her back never tangled, the supply of colored dresses never seemed to end. She seemed like the kind of person to sing along with the birds at dawn. If she could even sing.

But then Peter killed Liam, and Fallon's beauty turned murderous: dark circles beneath her deadened eyes, stringy curls in her face, ripped dresses, bow never out of her grip. Anyone who crossed her would get an arrow shoved in their face - regardless of how much of a threat they posed to her.

Peter supposed he would've faced a similar threat if Adeline Morris had a bow by her side when she first opened her eyes to Neverland.

He sat back, chewing on his lip, and rose to look out of the window: fifteen boys and one girl sat around the fire as the sun set, eating from bowls of some kind of food, laughing and chatting like always.

Closing his eyes, Peter revolved on the spot and teleported himself elsewhere: the only place he could visit his shadow without calling the Shade to join them as well. His thinking tree.

Thankfully, his shadow was already present, hovering around the top of the tallest tree where the finest pixie dust used to grow in the island's prime, when he could still fly with reckless abandon and not have to worry about running out and plummeting eighty feet into the ocean below.

"I need you to do something for me."

At the sound of Peter's voice, it moved down to float a few inches off of the ground and look at him with those unnerving golden eyes. The phantom was the hazy outline of Peter himself, boyish and young and impish but lacking all of his bravado.

His shadow never said anything unless absolutely necessary, so Peter carried on though it gave no indication it had heard him. "The girl who arrived last night. Find out where she came from. I need to know who she is and why she has magic, and how she came to be here from a land with no magic."

It didn't move.

"Go," Peter commanded, and the shadow shot into the sky. He craned his head back to watch it disappear into the growing twilight until he could see it no more, and then turned the other way and walked back into the forest. There was still work to do, and many more mysteries to solve.


	3. Refusal to Comply

**1.03 | Refusal to Comply**

"Get out  
and get gone;  
this town is only gonna get worse."  
Bloody Shirt - To Kill a King + Bastille

* * *

THE NOTEBOOK ADI pried from Pan's shelf of books wasn't really hers to claim, but he wasn't around to stop her. In her defense, it was blank and the empty pages were extremely inviting; there was no other possible release of the hurricane of thoughts storming through her mind at a million miles an hour.

Adi even had to use a quill and ink to do it. What was this, _Harry Potter_?

 _i know three things: one, pan is potentially dangerous. two, i have a lot to prove being the only girl here. three, i know nothing else. apparently i know how to shoot a bow - it was probably just beginner's luck. not like i've ever shot one any time in my life, except gym class where we used those stupid bright orange nerf ones with suction cup arrows._

 _anyway. this whole place should feel strange and wrong. that's the thing...it doesn't. i mean, at first, when i woke up and everything was new and different, it was weird. but now that i think about it, all of it seems to make perfect sense._

 _i hate it. because it shouldn't. and because everyone keeps looking at me like i'm supposed to have a clue as to what to do._

 _the majority of the boys aren't helping, either. slightly and ace are fine. actually, i kind of like both of them. felix is different. i'm not sure about him just yet. tootles is always around, but i'm pretty sure he wants to punch me every time i open my mouth._

 _which, all things considered, is a lot of the time_.

Adi had to end it there, because her words were beginning to get smudged beyond repair by the ridiculous amount of black liquid running all down the side of her left hand. Under her breath, she cursed Pan's prioritization of aesthetic over function.

After a moment of consideration, she shoved the journal beneath her mattress and tucked her blanket over top of it. Not that she thought Pan would invade her privacy.

Actually, that was exactly what she thought.

As Adi straightened back up and blew a few pieces of hair from her eyes, she glanced toward the window. The door was shut, but the window was a rectangular cutout in the wall – it was impossible to cover it and shield the chorus of male voices outside.

She couldn't avoid them forever.

When she swung open the creaky door, she discovered someone waiting for her at the bottom of the ladder. Felix, the blonde kid who had spoken about twice since she had arrived, the one with the club swung casually over his shoulder and the calculatingly cold blue eyes.

"Hi," Adi said with caution when her feet met the dirt. He towered over her by at least five inches, if not more. But there was something that made him feel very dissimilar to Pan - perhaps the lack of blatant arrogance. "Something you need?"

Felix fixed her with a blank stare – one of his only facial expressions, it seemed. "No, I don't need anything. You're just different. Interesting."

She chewed on the inside of her cheek. Although she appreciated the honesty after Pan's way of twisting the meaning of his words, something about him unnerved her. "You don't like me much, do you?"

"Haven't decided," he said. "Depends."

"On what?"

"On how much of a pain in my ass you're going to be."

That was fair. Adi knew that she had the tendency to be difficult.

"No one's making you talk to me, you know," she replied with a hint of a laugh.

Felix opened his mouth to reply, but was cut of when an accented voice said Adi's name in a singsong from behind her.

"Lovely of you to join us again," Pan said with a tight-lipped smile. "I was beginning to think you'd run off. Not like you could."

"Sorry." Adi didn't sound sorry at all. "Just making friends with your extremely personable lieutenant." Ignoring Felix's glare, she continued, "Something you need?"

"Yes, I do need something - well, _you_ need to do something."

"Which is?"

"Creating your weapon," Felix chimed in. "Equipping yourself to fight."

"All the boys do it. I'm not sure if you'll be the same, but most of them were excited for it," Pan finished with an offhanded shrug, but Adi knew what he was trying to say.

Like Felix, Pan thought she was different. This was his way of controlling the unpredictable.

Adi bit her lip. "I don't know how – nor do I want – to make a weapon. I'll use one, sure, granted Ace teaches me how, but I'd prefer not to make my own. I don't think that's right for me."

Pan raised an eyebrow. "You don't even know where you are - how could you possibly know already what is right and wrong for you to do?"

"Because I know myself." She straightened her posture. "Because I don't want to participate in your stupid little customs, and because you can't force me into doing anything."

There was a pause in which Pan stared at Adi for much longer than necessary. He had green eyes - emerald, which swept over her with a cold appraisal.

Adi didn't really care about making her own weapon. She supposed she could figure out how to do it, if she had the time. How hard could it be to carve a couple notches into some wood and call it a day? That wasn't the issue. The issue was that only two days after meeting him, she was already despising the way Pan tried to force her into his box of what an ideal Lost Boy was: weapons, fires, stories, games, obedience, collaboration.

Adi wasn't a Lost Boy. She wasn't lost, and she definitely wasn't a boy.

"Felix and the others would help you. You're not alone, Adeline, as much as you like to think you are."

"Hm," she shot back. "Seems like it."

"Think of it as a fun project."

Of all the weird projects Adi had been forced to do for school, constructing a bow from scratch was definitely a new one. Ice cream in a Ziploc bag? Check. Interpretive dance to the national anthem? Check. Sing a horribly written and terribly performed song about the parts of the brain? Double check. The closest she had gotten to weapon making was her Physics catapult. Which she had gotten a D on.

That, and annoying Pan had taken the number one spot on her to-do list. Right after _learn what the hell is going on here_.

"I'll give you some time to think about it," Pan finally relented, though his eyes were flashing dangerously down at her. "We can discuss this again tomorrow. In the meantime, make do with the already available weapons we have. And don't cause too many issues, Adeline. I'm beginning to think you're a lot more trouble than you're worth."

If he meant to offend her, he didn't stick around long enough to see her reaction. He spun around and stalked over to Tootles. The two exchanged a few words before Pan disappeared into the trees. The other boy stared at Adi with raised eyebrows until she looked back to Felix. Even after she did, she could still feel his gaze on her.

"That's what I mean by interesting," Felix said after a few bouts of silence. "You're fighting Pan, and he isn't killing you - he's making it into a game."

"Anyone can win a game as long as they know how to play." Adi narrowed her eyes at him.

His impassive expression shifted, but she couldn't decide if it was out of pity or amusement. "Pan never loses."

"He hasn't met me yet."

With that, she shot him a winning smile and moved over to the designated weapons practice space. She could still feel Felix staring at her back while she ran her fingers over the array of knives splayed unceremoniously across the dirt.

"Need some help?"

Attempting to hide her flinch of surprise, Adi looked up. Ace stood in front of her, left hand in his pocket and right wrapped around the hilt of a dagger that was shoved into his belt.

"I - yeah, I guess."

"Great. Try this." He grinned and offered her the blade.

Her eyebrows scrunched together. "And do what with it, exactly?"

"Throw it. In the target. Swords are for hand-to-hand, bows are for distance, knives are for distance _and_ hand-to-hand." He gave the knife a slight shake until she finally accepted it. "But we'll get into that later. For now, stick to the easiest thing."

The dagger felt odd in her hand. It was wrapped in sleek leather and tied with thin twine; the blade was forged from tarnished silver and refracted the sunlight in disjointed rays.

"I'm not sure easy is the word I'd use."

"Just throw it," Ace said, exasperated.

Adi positioned herself parallel to one of the peeling old targets and readjusted her fingers around the knife. When she felt Ace about to make another impatient comment, she jerked back her arm and then flicked it forward to let the knife fly.

She knew right away it was off balance. The metal clattered against the wood and fell to the ground in the leaves and dirt by the base of the target. "Yikes."

"That's fine, really. Your form is alright, but you need to tuck your elbow in a little tighter and relax your shoulders. As cliché as it sounds, it's an extension of yourself, and you need to act like it."

Adi straightened and accepted a second blade from him, this one a little heavier and well-weighted in her hand. She repeated the same motion as before, lurching forward with loosened posture and tighter elbows. Like pitching a baseball: throw with left arm, step forward with right leg.

Ace pursed his lips. "Better. Your aim is way off. Maybe this just isn't your thing, which is odd. Everyone learns daggers before anything else because they're easier. Either way, all you need to do is practice." With a tight lipped smile, he reached over to put his hand on her shoulder, then motioned to the display at their feet. "Take any of these. They're all different, so I'm sure you'll be able to find one that suits you." Then he turned away and left her alone.

As alone as one can get in a place like Neverland.

While Ace walked away, Adi took the chance to observe some of the boys' daily activities without Pan around, without her starting some kind of trouble like she was beginning to make a habit of. Ace had taken a seat on one of the logs by the fire pit and began to sharpen some of his knives; Tootles and a dark-skinned boy she didn't yet know were competing on a rope course that looked alarmingly similar to the set in her freshman gym class; Slightly and a shorter kid were talking animatedly by one of the trees ringing the outside of the camp, Felix had disappeared much like Pan.

Absolute freedom. Adi had always wondered what that was like, and as she turned back to the targets and weapons to select another one to practice with, she realized she had found it. It really wasn't as special as she had originally thought.

Adi kept going late into the evening, ignoring some of the other boys who wandered over to either watch or practice alongside her. Her aim had improved a little, but not significantly enough to warrant her a knife master. Just enough to make her feel accomplished (not that it took much) and hopeful about the rest of the time she was forced to remain on the island.

What finally tore her away and broke her out of her rhythm of _throw-throw-throw-retrieve-repeat_ was the sudden, jarring melody of a song.

It was haunting, eerie; the lost tune of a lost boy on a lost island. The pan flute's notes resonated through the forest, clinging to trees and snagging branches as it passed by, pervading Neverland's chilling silence.

Adi turned, transfixed by the captivating song, to see that every single boy had joined in a ring around the fire, some with sticks and some with bare hands, clapping and jumping and laughing. Their silhouettes became feral in the darkness.

Her mouth half-open in shock, Adi suddenly felt her muscles grow slack. A strange desire to join the dance washed over her, a desire to laugh the way the boys were, to feel as carefree as they did.

The tune picked up joyously, taunting her. Like he did.

But then Adi shook her head like a wet dog as her eyes connected with Pan's and she dug her teeth into her lip to fight back the call of the music.

Now she understood what he was doing. She wasn't going to let him. She refused to let him toy with her.

An understanding passed between them, the boy with the flute at his lips and the girl biting hers so hard they bled. He half nodded at her, like a concession. She had won this little battle. The first of many.

There would be more. Adi was afraid she didn't have enough fight in her to win them all.

* * *

Neverland mornings were beautiful: the sunrise painted the inside of the tree house rose gold, streaking light through the leaves so that shadows danced along the dirt-ridden floor.

Right across Adi's face.

She blinked in the blinding dawn and rolled over, muttering curses under her breath as she buried her face into the blanket. After the minutes slid by and all she accomplished was inhaling what felt like a ton of dust, she threw the sheets off her body and sat up.

Hair a messy, dark halo around her head; clothes rumpled after three days of constant wear; skin smelling like a disgusting mix of mud and sweat, Adi felt awful. The clothes Pan had left for her after her first night were still folded into a neat pile by her Converse: tight black pants and a thin shirt similar to the ones all the boys wore.

Adi pulled on the new garments and tied her hair up high, wondering when she'd have time to take a shower. She very much hoped the boys still believed in basic hygiene  
despite their lack of adult supervision.

Outside, Adi blinked in the morning light. The compound was empty for the first time of bustling activity and challenging yells and clangs of metal on metal.

"Morning, Adeline," a familiar, arrogant voice rang out from behind her. "Didn't think of you as an early riser."

Desperately, she wished for the silence of the moment before to return.

"I'm not," she replied without turning around. This way, she could pretend she was only imagining his presence and that she really was alone. "It's bright as hell here."

"You learn to block it out."

Adi let out a short laugh. "Among other things, I'm sure."

It was then that Pan inched his way into her line of vision with that awful swaggering walk he seemed to have perfected. He was clothed in the same outfit he had always been, fawn hair still sweeping in that messy, boyish I-don't-care fashion, jade eyes glittering as he appraised her. "I see you've taken to your new clothes. Excellent."

She scrunched her nose. "Not really, but I did get tired of smelling like sweat and smoke."

"Ah, that's what you think. That's only the first step in accepting your place here. The next, well, I have it right here." Pan held out his left hand. Adi stared at it, tempted to give him a high five, but then it disappeared beneath a cloud of emerald smoke that matched his eyes.

When it cleared, Adi understood: magic.

Pan gripped a finely shaped and beautifully carved bow forged from a deep chestnut wood, alongside a set of matching arrows slid carefully into a leather quiver. He offered both to her.

"They're for me?"

"Who else?" He cocked an eyebrow at her until she accepted them.

"I don't know, I thought you were forcing me to make my own like you make everyone else," she murmured as she surveyed the craftsmanship. Even with her limited knowledge of weapons, she could still tell that they were almost perfectly made.

"And I thought we agreed you didn't want to do that."

"We did, but I didn't know you were actually going to listen. And you didn't have to give me my own specific one. I could've used one of the communal bows."

"Oh, Adeline," Pan said with mocking sympathy, like she was a child who didn't quite yet understand why two plus two made four. "You and I both know you're a lot more special than that."

Adi swung the quiver over her shoulder and clenched the bow in her right hand. "I'm not, I promise."

His eyebrows drew together. "Yet you demand special treatment. Interesting how that works."

"I don't _demand_ attention, but you do happen to give it to me. Anyway, what do you want me to do with this?"

Pan was absolutely right that she was treated differently than the other boys, but she wouldn't let him have the satisfaction of being correct. She hoped that changing the subject would allow him time to let it go.

She should have known better.

"Shoot it. But not right now. Wait until everyone wakes up and comes outside, so you'll have a full audience." His eyes were glimmering with mischief. "Don't worry, we always do this. You're not special _this_ time."

Adi narrowed her eyes. "I'm not going to shoot a stupid bow just because you ask me to."

Pan blinked innocently. "Even if I ask nicely?"

" _Especially_ if you ask nicely." She readjusted the strap of the quiver against her shoulder and turned aside. "If you'll excuse me, there's something I need to do."

She didn't give him time to respond. Walking away with straight shoulders and steady footsteps was the one way she knew how to get the message across: _you don't scare me._

Well aware of Pan's glare on her, she fought back a small smirk as she picked one of the communal daggers off of the ground by the targets and dusted it off. Then, taking a seat on one of the tree stumps the boys sat on to eat, Adi held the knife over the top of her bow, right where the off-white twine wrapped around the wood.

The blade pressed easily into the wood. A for Adeline, A for Adi. D for Dawn.

And then, in the pause between the curve of the uppercase D and the first line of M, Adi's hand began to shake as an odd sense of having experienced this before washed over her, icy cold despite the sweat crawling down her back.

M for Morris. M for Morris. M for Morris.

 _M for Marie._

 _J for Jones._

 _Fallon leaned back to admire her careful handiwork. The capitalized and completely straight lines of her initials were the crown jewel of her brand-new, freshly carved bow. Its wood seemed to glisten in the early morning sunlight like she had dipped it in a pail of water._

 _Five hours. That's how long - with no help from Killian - it had taken Fallon to create her bow after Smee lost her old one in a bet in one of the inns they had taken to drinking in. She should have remembered that none of the men could hold their liquor, and should have thought not to bring her most prized possession to a place like that._

 _It also should've occurred to her that Smee was an idiot._

 _This would be different. The last one she had fashioned didn't sit right in her hands even after all the months she used it. And now, as Fallon stood, all of her joints cracking as she did so, she couldn't help but smile at its weight in her hand. All hers. All right._

 _She slid one of her old arrows out of the leather quiver across her back and strung it. The chestnut of the arrow mismatched with the oaky brown of the bow, but she didn't find it in herself to care. Not after all her hard work._

 _A satisfying creak. Adrenaline shot through her, and she pulled back on the bowstring even farther, so close her left hand brushed against her cheek for a feather-light second until she let it go._

 _The arrow whistled through the rose red dawn and hit that speck of blood on the lower mast that she'd been aiming at for weeks on end. Fallon smiled. This one, all her own, weighed differently in her grip, so much that her aim was finally perfect._

 _Fallon Marie Jones, the archer, the pirate._

 _The unstoppable._

Adi blinked. Around her, the entire world had shifted. It felt like something had pressed a pause button on her brain, allowing life to go on without her, and then suddenly remembered to press play, launching her into a place she could not remember arriving in.

"Are you ever going to finish that?" someone asked. "You've been on M for like fifteen minutes."

Flinching, Adi looked up to see Tootles standing above her with eyebrows raised. Then she noticed that her hand was still clutching a dagger over her bow, where she had done one line of an M and forgotten to complete the rest.

The world had come alive while she was lost inside her mind.

"I am, yeah. Zoned out for a little bit."

Tootles stared at her like she was crazy. "A little bit?"

Adi finished the last three lines of her initials and abruptly stood. She swayed on the spot. Probably not good for Tootles, who put a hand on her shoulder, afraid she was going to vomit.

"I'm fine, don't worry."

He laughed, like she was stupid for believing he even cared about her. "Believe me, I'm not worried. I only came over here cause Pan wants you."

"Thanks so much for your concern." Adi rolled her eyes. "What for?"

"That, I think," he said, motioning to the bow in her rigid grasp.

She had hoped Pan was bluffing. She had hoped these rituals would be over. She had hoped to be left alone by now.

Adi stared impassively at Tootles for half a second later, then looked past his tall form to where Pan's shorter one stood, ten feet behind him with arms crossed over his chest and head tilted to the side, like he was listening.

He probably was.

"Alright," Adi said, unsure if she was talking to Tootles or Pan. "I'll shoot so we can get this stupid initiation over with."

"This isn't our only initiation."

"Great. Can't wait for the others. For now, I'll deal with one at a time."

She and Tootles stood in front of Pan now. He motioned to the target boards, grinning broadly. "Whenever you're ready, Adeline."

Although Pan made no sound, as if he'd called their names individually, every single boy paused in their actions and turned to face in her direction. Silently, like phantoms.

Adi wondered if they doubted her because she was a girl. She sincerely hoped so.

It would make victory taste sweeter.

The arrow she plucked from the rest felt foreign in her hand: hollow wood, three silver feathers, iron cast tip. There was a notch in the bow it fit perfectly into. It felt like she took three years to align it with the string. Too long; rustling in the crowd.

And then, drawling and arrogant, quite like himself, Pan: "Today, Adeline."

"Shut your mouth, Pan," Adi said under her breath as she let the arrow fly.

Bullseye. The fletchings vibrated in place with the force of her draw.

Turning around with a victorious glint in her eye, Adi felt the heat of anger and pride swelling through her like a fever rush. "That good enough? Or do you need me to shoot another one through the first now?"

But Pan was smiling - without fury, without irritation, without even a smidge of doubt. "I knew you were good enough. An excellent shot right away - it's almost unheard of."

"You said I was special. Maybe that's why," she shrugged.

"Wonder what you'd be like in action," he continued like he hadn't even acknowledged her presence. Even though he was talking about her. "Boys! How would you like to play a game with our newest arrival?"

A general cry of agreement rang through the camp, echoing in the silence of the island, a song for the forest.

Adi tilted her chin up and rolled her shoulders back. False confidence turned into real confidence which turned into the will to stand up and fight.

Pan turned back to her, alive with malice and excitement. And thirst for blood, maybe, but she wasn't sure what that looked like on him yet.

"Let's see what she's really made of."


	4. How to Believe

1.04 | How to Believe

"I feel a fire in the back of my throat  
so let's get covered in flames  
and play some games with the smoke."  
Smoke - PVRIS

* * *

ADI DIDN'T PARTICULARLY know – or care to know – what she was 'made of,' but she was almost positive it wasn't the same stuff as the boys. Their method of determining her worthiness rested on the shoulders of a game she'd only ever played in her freshman gym class: capture the flag.

The boys had developed a legitimate system of how to play with a minimal likelihood of cheating and a maximum likelihood of injury. Weapons were a go. There were no poisoned swords and deadly spears in gym class.

Adi figured that this was about accurate in terms of the luck she'd been having recently. Getting her head chopped off over a flag was not on her list of priorities.

Captain number one: Felix. Members: Slightly, Devon, Thomas, West, Brendon, Leo.

Captain two: Tootles. Members: Ace, Max, Christopher, Nibs, Ben, last and most definitely least, Adi.

Each group huddled like basketball players before the big game, except these teams were heavily armed and ready to capture some magic flags on a fictional island.

It was decided (by Tootles) that Adi and Max were to take defense; Ace, Tootles, and Ben would hunt down the flag; Christopher and Nibs would go through the enemy line first to take down any opponents they came across to allow the three easy flag access.

The flags were both white, pulsating with a strange kind of energy that Adi swore she could feel from five feet away. Even throwing a glance at it made her head throb with the beginnings of a migraine.

Now, she and the kid - Max - she had only met five minutes ago were trekking loudly through the unfamiliar woods. Bow in her right hand, flag in left. His hands empty. Twin daggers were shoved through the belt loops on his khaki pants, each with a ring at the end. Adi wasn't quite sure how they functioned, but hoped that he could use them well - they would need it.

Max scaled a tree with surprising ease to shove the white flag between two branches, leaving a small segment of it visible against the brown and green.

"Only an inch or so has to be seen," he explained when he returned. "I like to play fair."

"Fair. Haven't heard that word in a while," Adi said with a wry smile. If only to give herself something to do, she readied an arrow for firing while surveying their surroundings, which looked the same as every other place she had seen in the forest.

Max half shrugged. "Depends on the person."

They lapsed into silence. She took the opportunity to study him out of the corner of her eye, as she hadn't really paid attention earlier.

It was easy to see that Max literally never stopped moving. Twitching, shifting, tapping. Grasping the rings on his daggers then letting them go, running his hands through his short hair, twisting a loose thread that hung off his shirt.

He had dark skin to match his eyes. Adi wondered if he used those weird knives on his hair - the top was cut unevenly and the sides were haphazardly half-shaved in the clumsy way only a self-given haircut is done. It suited him.

A branch snapping somewhere off to their left drew Adi out of her thoughts and subtle analysis of Max. The boy in question shoved his middle fingers into the rings of each blade and pulled them from his belt, twirling them around until they settled in his palm.

She was so focused on how fearsome he looked that she forgot what they were supposed to be doing, until it occurred to her that she was on defense too.

Adi raised the bow and pulled back its string, aiming in the direction of the noise. _Look down the shaft, keep your hands steady, don't forget to focus on the rest of your surroundings_.

She couldn't remember who had given it to her, but it was good advice. But it didn't help at the moment, because right as the last word rang through her head, faint like the volume was only up one notch, someone attacked from behind.

Something grasped her right shoulder. Hard. Fingers squeezed into her collarbone. She dropped the bow; the person was too close anyway. Reaching blindly around, Adi clutched his wrist with her hand and pushed down with all the force and anger in her entire body while whirling around to face him.

Leo, maybe? There was no time to check and make sure Adi had his name correct, not when he used the hand she wasn't gripping to plant a well-positioned shot in her gut.

Doubled over, she barely managed to glance up through her the chunks of hair that had fallen from her ponytail to see him coming at her again.

But there was always enough time, always enough room to knee him in the crotch. Always. Lesson number one in self-defense: once they attack, all boundaries are gone. Adi decided that sportsmanlike conduct didn't matter in a game ruled by weapons and fists.

He fell. Adi reclaimed her bow and pointed an arrow directly at his face, which he shielded with his arm as he squinted up at her, the sun, the arrow; defeated.

But Leo smiled. On his hands and knees, taken down, and he smiled. "Behind you."

It took a fraction of a second for Adi to turn, but a fraction of a fraction for Felix to take her down. The bow toppled out of her grasp, white hot pain erupting in her left bicep as he smacked her unceremoniously with his brutish wooden club. Twice. As far as ways to fall to the ground go, not really a graceful one.

Adi let out an unladylike - not that she cared what was ladylike and what wasn't - grunt as Felix's weapon caught her in the hip angled toward him and she crumpled right next to Leo. He seemed to have recovered, but now was watching with amusement.

Across the way, she could see Max's daggers impaled in one of the trees beside his unconscious body. An unsightly lump was forming along his hairline and blood streaked across his cheek.

Unfortunately, Adi wasn't quite equipped to handle being hit with wooden clubs multiple times over; otherwise, she would've leapt right up and shoved an arrow through Felix's skull, potential friendship be damned. The wind was still knocked out of her and she could only clutch her tender side with gritted teeth as she watched the irritatingly arrogant blonde retrieve the flag from the trees.

Once his fingers touched the faintly glowing fabric, the hum of magic Adi felt inside of it faded. All that was left was a plain white flag and a victorious other team.

Groaning, she took a deep breath and accepted Leo's hand and allowed him to pull her to her feet, heavily favoring her right side.

"Good game. Surprisingly." He shot her a half smile and ripped Max's ring daggers out of the trees. Felix hovered by the edge of the clearing, so Leo took it upon himself to snap his fingers in front of the Max's face until his eyes fluttered open.

"Thanks for your unending faith in me." She rolled her eyes and, as if out of habit though she had never done it before, put her bow over her shoulder.

Felix shoved the flag into his pocket and helped Leo haul Max up. They allowed him to lean heavily on their shoulders as they began their slow and painful walk back to camp.

Already, Adi could feel her left hip and left bicep throbbing with every step. No doubt they would bruise ghastly violet and violent green by the end of the day. Battle scars of a lost battle.

And because even the universe in another realm had a vendetta against her, she was left handed.

Part of her knew she was just being dramatic. They would heal, life would go on.

What got to her was the fact that she was standing right there, armed and prepared, and still got taken down in a matter of seconds by a kid half a foot shorter than her.

"You alright back there?" Adi called over her shoulder, forgetting about the three boys behind her as she got lost in her thoughts. The telltale crunch of leaves beneath footfalls ceased a little bit.

"We're fine," Leo replied weakly. "I might die, but we're fine."

Shaking her head, Adi rolled her eyes and kept walking.

 _"Are you sure about this, Killian?"_

 _"Not really, but I've never been sure about anything." He gave her a short chuckle and a falsely confident smile._

 _Fallon failed to see the levity. She gripped her month-old bow tighter and shook a few pieces of hair from her eyes. "That's comforting."_

 _"Come on then, dear sister. Get on with it."_

 _Heaving a deep sigh, she stood from her crouched position by the edge of the docks behind a stack of rotting driftwood covered in slime that smelled suspiciously like vomit. Fallon threw back her shoulders and stalked out into the open - right in front of the entrance to the ship._

 _One of the smaller crew members was the first to spot her. He called for the captain like a wuss the second he saw a girl - a teenager, at that, dressed in a scowl like a makeshift pirate. She usually got disbelieving stares before anything else. This one was smart._

 _Not smart enough._

 _Fallon's boots squeaked against the pier as she drew her bow and stepped closer, baring her teeth like a wild animal. It wouldn't take much to see the true her; she still had yet to grasp her newfound self, and the old her, the innocent one, shined through like someone had tried to throw a black sheet over the sun._

 _"What's this?" The captain had arrived, grinning broadly as he appraised the girl in front of him with a wide, mocking smile. "What business do you have here, girl?"_

 _Fallon leveled the arrow with his face. Breathed out in a sigh of exaggerated impatience. Took another step toward him. "Isn't it obvious?" Paused for effect. "I've come to take your ship,_ captain _."_

 _There was a moment of silence. Then he let out a mad, barking laugh, tilting his head back toward the heavens like even the angels were worthy of hearing his disgusting chortle. "If you wish, darling, be my guest."_

 _It was Fallon's turn to laugh. "I'll remember you invited me in when I rip your head from your shoulders. Come on,_ captain _, I thought you'd be smarter than that."_

 _"Smarter?" His hand was on his sword._

 _"Smart enough to know there's no way in hell I'd come alone."_

 _Then the Jolly Roger's crew ripped the night to shreds with a war cry so loud it shook the ocean, and Fallon released the arrow she had pointed at the nameless captain's head._

 _The men did what they did best: swarmed the ship, stealing and murdering and yelling. It seemed to be all they knew. Impressionable men, following her brother wherever he dared to lead them out of his vengeance, his anger, his spite._

 _Fallon moved through the storm with ease. The dead captain's hat lay on the deck a few feet from his head, alongside a puddle of glittering crimson liquid. She stared at him for a moment longer, a second of silence in the chaos, and ripped the arrow from his skull. His skin squelched and gurgled more blood. Fallon wiped it on his shirt and turned around, stone-faced._

 _There was no room for regret_.

The world shot back into focus. Adi felt short of breath. Her feet had stopped working. Her head spun, but the world was still. Leo and Max were standing in front of her. Very close to her face.

Felix hung back, but there was still a hint of uncharacteristic concern on his face.

"Adi?" Leo said cautiously, like he was unsure if she was entirely there.

She wasn't sure she was. There was nothing but a screen of shadow in the space of her blackout. A gaping lapse between teasing Leo and finding him beside her snapping his fingers in her eyes.

"What happened?"

Max was standing upright on his own now. "You stopped walking. We kept calling your name, but you wouldn't listen. Kind of just stood there. And we came around to see your face. Your eyes were all glazed over, staring at nothing. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm good," she said with false confidence.

Leo eyed her through a narrowed gaze. "If you say so. Took us a good minute to snap you out of it. I wonder what would've happened if we hadn't been here."

Clearly, he wasn't looking for an answer; he turned away and continued through the humid jungle without another word. Max ran a hand through his hair and followed. Felix waited until she started moving to continue as well, his face expressionless once more.

Adi chewed on the inside of her cheek, pressing a hand to her side as if to make sure her injury was still present. Only when dull pain encased her left half did she go after the boys.

Pain kept her alert. Kept her going.

So she went.

* * *

The shadow was back. Peter was never sure how exactly he knew, but it probably had something to do with the fact that it used to be permanently tethered to his body.

Not all of the boys had returned yet from their scattered positions around the island during the game, but he knew who had won, what had happened. That was all he needed to know. He saw right through the stories they spun the night after victory when they were feeling particularly brave and cocky.

It was waiting for him by his thinking tree as usual, hovering a few feet above the ground and glaring directly at Peter with unsettling golden eyes. They looked accusatory.

"Well?" he prompted it with raised eyebrows. He knew that his shadow didn't speak unless spoken to, which was both a blessing and a curse.

The shadow didn't move as it spoke, its voice scratchy and sounding like three people talking at the same time at varying pitches and speeds. Peter was used to its unsettling demeanor. "The girl isn't who she thinks she is. There was a curse. Queen Regina of the Enchanted Forest took the entirety of her kingdom to the Land Without Magic and left their own realm wrecked and broken. The few survivors are still recovering. Regina and her subjects reside on Earth under false identities. They're deluded into believing they are human and from a place called Storybrooke."

Peter swallowed. "What does this mean for the girl?"

"It means," the shadow said almost impatiently. "that her name is not Adeline Morris, and she isn't from the Land Without Magic. She's someone else, someone from the Enchanted Forest, who _believes_ she's a normal human."

"You know who she is?"

"You know too."

Without waiting for another question or protest, the shadow shot off into the falling dusk and left Peter alone once more with only his thoughts for company. It was right. He had a sneaking suspicion of who she was, and this only confirmed it further.

Adeline Morris wasn't really Adeline Morris at all. But she believed she was, and that made all the difference in the world. That meant something else, too: she was a lot more powerful than Peter had originally bargained for.

No matter. He would conquer her just the same.

* * *

When she had first seen the boys crowded around the fire in a haphazard ring atop fallen logs, Adi had called it unwelcoming and bizarre. She was quickly learning that bizarre was normal here.

She was quickly learning a lot of things, but the one she couldn't seem to keep straight was the names. There was Slightly and Tootles and Ace and Leo and Max and Felix, but everyone else kind of blended together inside her head in a mesh of deep voices and male faces.

"Adeline!"

There was only one person who insisted on the use of her full first name.

A hush fell over all thirteen of the boys. Every pair of eyes fixed on her pale face flickering orange in the steady firelight. When she said nothing, Ace elbowed her in the side - the left one, of course - and she suppressed a yelp with her teeth.

Adi heaved a sigh. "What, Pan?"

"Come here." When she didn't move a muscle, he said, "Please."

"Oh, well, since you asked so nicely," she muttered as she got to her feet.

Across the fire, Slightly shot her a warning glance, but she merely narrowed her eyes in return. The day had been tolerable until he'd showed up again, pulling her away from the one time she had actually felt comfortable since her arrival.

Adi stepped over the log and followed Pan to the edge of the camp, fully aware of the boys watching until they disappeared between the trees. In the dark, the forest looked a lot more intimidating. The branches turned into monsters, the leaves whispering taunts behind her back.

Liquid moonlight spilled across the path they walked. Two shadows in the dark jungle alive with the ghosts of old enemies.

"Where are we going, exactly?" Adi dared to ask.

"I'm going to teach you about magic," Pan replied vaguely. "And I didn't want to be near anything important. Just in case."

"Just in case what? I blow something up?"

"Something like that."

That wasn't exactly reassuring.

Pan held a branch out of her way as he guided her into a large empty stretch between two particularly tall trees. In the light of the moon, when Adi turned to look back at him, the boy king looked like a demon. She shook her head and stood in the middle of the clearing with her arms crossed over her chest.

"Well?" Adi asked after a heartbeat of him just standing there in front of her with a blank expression.

A grin twitched at his mouth. "That's exactly what I was waiting for."

"What, me wondering what we're doing in the middle of the woods in the middle of the night?"

"No," Pan shook his head, still smiling with that same manic energy. "That spark inside of you. The one that tugs at your stomach whenever you get angry or upset or irritated - the one that makes you so hot-headed. The reason you started yelling at me not ten minutes after you first woke up here. The reason you refuse to go along with anything we've tried to get you to do. The reason you look at everyone like they're challenging you and you're going to win the battle they don't even want to fight."

Adi raised her eyebrows at him. "You mean my personality?" she deadpanned. "What about it?"

"See, you're doing it again," he pointed out, chuckling breathily. "Getting all defensive. Don't you ever wonder why?"

"My Mars sign is in Aries," she said flatly. "No, Pan, I don't wonder why. Don't you ever wonder why you're so annoying? I do."

He chose to ignore her jab and stepped closer to her. She didn't move back. The smile he gave her sent chills down her spine. "That spark is part of what triggers the most powerful piece of your magic. Close your eyes. Hold your hand out, palm up." After a pause in which he glared pointedly at her, Adi shut her eyes. He stepped closer again - she could tell by the crunch of his boots on fallen twigs. "Believe all your anger, your irritation, your fury rising to the surface of your skin. It'll collect in your heart."

Adi took a shuddering breath.

"Believe it to channel through your arm, down toward your wrist and out of your fingertips."

By now, he was so near in proximity she could feel his breath brush past her cheek. She fought back the urge to flinch.

She opened her eyes. "Nothing happened."

"Try again. Remember what I told you. Block out everything except for that heat that drives you."

This should have felt absurd - Adi knew that. But a small fraction of her wanted to believe it was real, wanted to believe she held the power of the sun in the palm of her hand, wanted to believe she was something special.

That thought alone willed her to close her eyes once more and focus.

Her heart beat loudly in her ears, the metronome to her magic. _Thump, thump, tick, tick_ ; the clock winding down to her moment of truth. What if she really was nothing important? If Pan wasted both of their time? If there wasn't even -

A soft popping noise dragged her from her thoughts.

"Well done," Pan said, farther away than she remembered.

Adi nearly screamed when she opened her eyes. In the palm of her hand, crackling and leaping up toward the night sky, was a pod of flames no bigger than her first finger. It licked her skin but left no marks, no pain, no aftertaste.

This was what power felt like.

Pan wore no expression as he watched her. The fire flickered against his emerald irises; the shadows across his face made him look almost evil. As Adi willed the flames to grow stronger, his smile returned, but it felt forced.

 _Anger. Red-hot, blinding, blurring her vision like a smoky crimson haze. Fallon could feel it boiling beneath her skin like a tea kettle over flames._

 _"What do you mean I don't get to come?" Fallon half-shouted. Her fists were clenched into the fabric of her shiny yellow dress so Liam wouldn't see. When she got physically angry, he refused to speak with her._

 _"I mean that you're not coming," he replied calmly. "The queen sent orders for Killian and I to go, not you. Your place is here, Fallon."_

 _She breathed heavily out through gritted teeth. "The queen sent orders for you and your_ crew _to go. I qualify as part of your crew."_

 _Now he was only humoring her. "No, you don't. You've only just turned sixteen, you have no idea how to be a part of a functional crew, and you have no idea what you're doing. Stay here, where the girls belong. We'll only be gone for a few days, I promise."_

 _Fallon was on the verge of regaining her composure until Liam's third sentence. Her dress nearly tore beneath her fingernails. Stepping closer, she glared at him only inches from his face. "Because I'm a girl?" she hissed underneath her breath. "You know I can take care of myself. But you must be right, because you're a man, and what you say goes. That's how it works, right? Girls don't get to make the decisions. We don't get to_ do _anything. We have to sit in our disgusting yellow dresses and look pretty and nothing else."_

 _For a moment, she and her brother stared at each other. Neither backing down, neither standing to fight. And then, when Liam opened his mouth to say something, the fore sail directly behind Fallon caught on fire._

 _Not a slow, steady burn of material, but a spontaneous combustion that ripped the fabric to ashes that floated down into Fallon's hair and dress like toxic snow. She didn't move beneath it._

 _"Sorry," she said, devoid of all emotion._

 _Liam didn't even know his sister had magic. She shot him a cold glare and left him to clean up his ship before it departed for Neverland. With any luck, the entire_ Jewel of the Realm _would spontaneously combust before it left port later that afternoon._

 _Not that Fallon would have anything to do with that_.

Adi stared blankly at the flames in her grasp, suddenly revolted by the yellow ebbing from her fingertips. Closing her hand effectively extinguished the fire and left her and Pan in the semi-darkness. She wondered how long it would take to create more the next time she attempted to use her magic, if there would ever be a point when she could use magic as easily as blinking or breathing.

Then again, Pan had taught her how to believe - that wasn't something easily forgotten.

"Come on, Adeline, we should be getting back. You have a big day tomorrow." Pan began leading her back through the woods from which they had come. She couldn't help but feel like 'big day' couldn't mean anything good.

A big day meant big expectations. Adi was never really good at fulfilling those.

* * *

 **if you're at all confused as to how adi's experiencing the flashbacks: basically when something small happens that triggers a memory, adi kind of blanks out for a minute or two while it happens. and when it's over, she only has a vague idea of what happened, but she's too disoriented to understand that the person in the vision is her. and she thinks she's normal, so she's not quite ready to believe she used to be someone different**


	5. Will to Fight

1.05 | Will to Fight

"There's a place I wanna go  
and a life I wanna know  
but you crucified my  
heart of gold."  
Miracle - Hurts

* * *

ADI HAD NOTHING against games. The ones the boys insisted on playing every single day, however, were akin to the ones she played in elementary school during recess - things like capture the flag, hide and seek, and, today's fascinating installment: chase.

Neverland truly was for those who never wanted to grow up.

There were no teams: this was every man for himself (and woman for herself). Tootles was dubbed 'it,' and turned around to count to sixty while everyone else hid. Some of the boys formed alliances and disappeared into the woods with each other, but Adi headed off alone. She didn't need anyone to help her. How hard could it be to hide from someone in a gigantic forest?

Besides, as of last night, she could conjure fire in her hands. So she figured she had a good defense system.

The humidity pressed against Adi as she wove her way through trees and bushes and branches. Sweat began to form at the base of her neck; her hair and clothes clung to her body unpleasantly, but she barely even noticed in the (no pun intended - actually, who was she kidding, pun totally intended) heat of the moment.

A branch crackled behind her. Adi turned, hand already outstretched, well aware that the odds of it being Tootles rather than any of the other twelve boys were very low. Preparation was key.

"Y'know, Adi, the point of chase is that you run."

The odds were never in her favor.

 _Thanks, Neverland universe_.

Adi whirled around to face the voice emanating from her right. Tootles' tall frame leaned casually against a tree, arms crossed over his chest as he surveyed her with an exasperated expression.

"I don't have to run," she replied confidently.

"Why, because you think you can use magic on me or something?" he scoffed and pushed himself from the trunk. "I'd love to see you try."

He was right. She had only ever attempted to use it once, and that was after a few tries with coaching from Pan. Granted, he did say that her anger fueled it, but she wasn't feeling particularly angry at the moment. More like irritated.

It would've been easy for Tootles to simply step forward and tap Adi on the shoulder and declare her tagged and tell her to get back to the compound with all the others he had caught. But he remained where he was and watched her with raised eyebrows and mild interest.

Adi thought angry thoughts. Horrible, infuriating thoughts.

There was a pause in which nothing happened, and then there was a distinctive cracking noise that caused her eyes to shoot open.

That same sound had happened the last time she tried.

It wasn't magic. It was a stick crunching beneath Tootles' foot as he moved forward to tag her. "Got you."

"Great," Adi muttered under her breath. "I should've just freaking ran."

He shrugged in reply. "Not my fault you're incompetent."

"Hey!" she retorted indignantly, but he had already started to depart further into the woods with his hands in his pockets and a smirk on his face. "I am not incompetent!"

"Let's see how well your not-incompetent-self can get back to camp!" Tootles called over his shoulder right as he vanished into the blinding sunlight.

"Asshole," Adi muttered under her breath. Arrogance seemed to be a common trait among the Lost Boys. "I don't need him anyway. I can take care of myself."

That was the motto. The more she proved herself in front of the boys, the less they'd doubt her, the more she could avoid their probably inherent sexism.

Unfortunately, Adi wasn't sure she _could_ prove herself.

She was - in simplest and least embarrassing terms - horribly lost. All the trees started to look the same the further she walked, and either the jungle was a lot bigger than she'd initially thought or she was walking in circles.

Abruptly, the trees ended with a pile of rocks arching like a tunnel that led out to a steep drop-off to the ocean below. A short expanse of grass stretched between the boulders and the water. The land reclaimed itself about fifty feet from the edge of the chasm.

Adi dared to line her feet up with the edge of the cliff and peer over. The drop probably would've been enough to kill her had she been brave - or stupid - enough to find out. Rough waves crashed at the bottom, spraying white foam halfway up the chasm.

It didn't do wonders for Adi's stomach. Feeling a little nauseous, she backed away until she hit the rocks. Her shoulder blades against stone grounded her, helped her catch her breath.

From up here, the beginnings of the sunset had started to streak against the sky and mirror on the calm water spanning out forever and ever.

The stars would be even better if Adi ever got the chance to see them. It almost looked beautiful, and then she glanced down the chasm again. She turned back into the forest.

There was a vaguely cleared path where she (and most likely others) had walked previously, one that was almost parallel to the one she had traveled before. It wasn't like anyone had taken the liberty of tying neon orange mile markers to trees, but it was enough for her to have a slight idea of where she was going. She hoped it was the right way this time.

What felt like miles, a lot of panting, and a lot of impatient groaning later, Adi reached the edge of camp just as the sun slipped below the horizon.

Tootles was waiting for her, smug as ever. "Nice of you to join us." He reached forward to pluck a leaf from her hair.

"Yeah, whatever, shut up," Adi muttered as she passed him, focused on getting up to her room so she could sit for five minutes before -

Someone tugged at her arm as she passed by the fire. Pan. Eyebrows raised, head tilted to the side, lip between his teeth, grip on her wrist growing alarmingly tighter.

Before that.

"Where've you been?" Not accusatory, more curious.

"I lost," she deadpanned. "And then I got lost."

His lips twitched up at the irony for half a second. "You lost because?"

Adi debated if she should cut right to the chase, or if she could seize one of many opportunities to be aggravating. "Because I don't know my way around the island yet...?"

Cue the eye roll and crossing of arms over his chest. "That isn't what I meant."

There was a pause in which Adi stared blankly at him and he back at her, neither backing down. Both of them knew her real answer, but she wasn't keen on saying it. Until, finally, she sighed and said, "Fine. I lost because I thought I could use magic to defend myself, but...I couldn't."

"Couldn't?" Pan repeated. "Why not?"

"If I knew, we wouldn't be having this useless conversation, would we?" Adi muttered. "I tried, but it didn't work. I mean, I didn't really think it would, but it didn't either way."

"So you didn't think it was going to work?"

"Not really. Sorry, but magic isn't exactly a normal thing where I come from, so imagining fire coming from my hands multiple times seems a little ridiculous."

"Well, there's your problem," Pan said. A fact, a statement; not an indictment - which was different, coming from him. "Mentality is half the fight. Believing that you can do something allows you to do it. Believe you're going to fail, and you likely will."

"So like a self-fulfilling prophecy?" Adi shifted her weight.

"Yes." He nodded, reaching out to grasp her wrist and hold her hand face up in the space between them. "The first time you used magic, you told me you felt it in your fingertips. You said it felt powerful. And when you opened your eyes, there was fire. So tell me that you're not special. Tell me you're not more than you thought you were." She said nothing. "That's because you are."

Adi leveled him with a blank stare. "This just sounds like you're trying to tell me I have to be arrogant to succeed. Like you."

"To a certain extent, of course. Be careful of overconfidence."

"Well, you'd know a lot about overconfidence, wouldn't you, Pan?"

When Pan said nothing and turned away, Adi couldn't help but snort. He was the most arrogant person she'd ever met, and he knew it. A lot of people might have called it part of his charm, but she saw right through it.

She doubted she was the only one who did, but the boys respected their leader too much to point it out.

But Adi was the epitome of disrespect.

* * *

 _For the beginning of autumn, it was alarmingly cold. Fallon tugged the ragged fabric of her sleeve closer to her as she fought back a shiver. The torn dresses she wore were perfect for the heat of summer, but she would have to rethink her wardrobe choice once winter hit._

 _Past alleys and buildings, she counted the steps back to the_ Jolly Roger _. Killian and the crew had stopped for the night at a pub in town; Fallon had been invited, but the idea of helping a bunch of drunken men twice her age back to the ship in the dead of night was less than appealing._

 _"What's someone like you doing alone this late?"_

 _Fallon paused, then backtracked to the mouth of an alley she had passed without a second glance. Two men, one at each wall. Both had a few inches on her, but what she lacked in height she made up for in attitude._

 _"Walking," she stated flatly. "Now, if you'll excuse me."_

 _Faster than Fallon could blink, the one who had spoken swiped for her and grabbed her by the forearm towards him. Her free hand twitched over her shoulder for an arrow, but then it hit her that her bow was back in her quarters. Most people didn't carry deadly weapons with them on a daily basis._

 _"Not so fast."_

 _Fallon wrenched herself from his grip. "Touch me again, and I_ will _kill you."_

 _Silence. She glared fiercely at both of them. They laughed._

 _She might have looked less threatening standing there in the darkness, small and unarmed. But that didn't mean she couldn't knock them into next week._

 _Number two twisted one of her curls between his fingers, looking her up and down with a predatory gleam in his eye. Fallon debated counting to three. Then she decided in that three seconds she could've already taken him down, so she lunged for him and went for the throat._

 _"Don't touch me," she hissed through gritted teeth as she drove her thumbs into his windpipe and smashed his skull into the brick wall behind him. His head pitched forward along with the rest of him due to lack of oxygen and the force of the blow._

 _The first was shouting for her to get off of him, but Fallon paid no attention until he pulled at her waist as if to move her and she rounded on him instead. His touch felt cold as ice._

 _Her vision turned blood red. There was no lunging, no punching, no kicking, no shoving. Fallon didn't do anything for a good three seconds while she glowered at him with all the strength she could manage to summon._

 _His shirt caught on fire._

 _Horrified, Fallon backed as far as she could until she hit the wall. He attempted to blot out the flames but they kept growing and eating away at the fabric - it wouldn't be long until his skin would burn too._

 _He looked up. Their eyes connected for a single heartbeat._

 _And Fallon ran_.

Adi woke with the taste of smoke in her mouth.

Sweat prickled at her forehead and along her back and waistline, dampening the sheets to an uncomfortable degree. She felt breathless, like she'd just run a mile; and sore, like someone had used her as their own personal punching bag.

Again, she was alone in the room. Pan probably slept for like an hour and went back outside. That was the only explanation she had as to why he was never there in the morning.

Her stomach rumbled. She tried to remember the last time she had eaten, but came up empty. Judging by the way her hair felt when she ran her hand through it, she was in dire need of a shower as well.

Sighing, Adi threw the covers off and pushed her stringy curls behind her back, about to stand when a sudden, sharp noise made her flinch. Whipping her head around, she saw Max in the open doorway, fist poised to knock.

"Felix wants to talk to you."

Adi's desire to go outside suddenly took a nosedive out the window.

"That's unfortunate," she said as she leaned back on her saturated sheets. "Especially considering he has no real authority over me."

An audible sigh. A pause. And then his heavy footsteps on the floor. Max crossed his arms over his chest as he glared at her. Correction: attempted to glare. He still looked like a kicked puppy. "Your _I-don't-care-about-anything_ routine might work on everyone else, but not on me. Now get up."

"No."

"Come on, Adi, you don't even know why he wants to talk to you."

She arched an eyebrow. "Do you?"

"All he said was that he needed to talk to you soon."

This worsened her mood. Five minutes into her day and she was already at rock bottom. "Yeah, because _that_ doesn't suspicious. Come on, he hates me. What could he possibly have to say?"

Max ran a frustrated hand over his face. "He doesn't hate you. It'll take like five minutes. You'll be fine. Now get up."

"What if it takes six minutes?"

"Oh my god." Max eyes fluttered shut. Adi counted to three before he opened them again. "Could you please stop being annoying for point five seconds? Come on, one second, tops."

She let out a sigh and sat up. "Fine, whatever." When Max didn't leave, she gave him an odd look. "I said okay."

"I know, but I need to make sure you're actually coming out."

She shot him a glare and gave him another second to move. He didn't.

The time gave her time to remember her current, uncomfortable predicament. "Is there somewhere I can take a shower or something?"

Max sighed. "Yeah, but I wouldn't recommend you going there, being the only girl and everything. But I bet with your magic you wouldn't even need to."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means you can 'take a shower' with magic," he said patiently, using air quotes. "We call it believing. If you believe you have something, you will have it. If you believe you're clean, you will be."

There was still some doubt clutching at her insides, but she squeezed her eyes shut and concentrated, imagining herself clean and smelling like her cheap, dollar store shampoo from back home, imagining the dirt disappearing from her skin, imagining her tangled mess of frizzy hair soft and shiny once more.

Something strange happened: a cloud of violet encircled her like her own personal storm cloud, and then vanished.

"Congratulations," Max said with grin. "You believed. The purple is kind of like the trademark of your magic. Pan's is green."

Adi smiled back. "This is cool." She thought of an apple, and a shiny red one appeared in her hand before she could blink.

When Max turned to walk out the door, he said something over his shoulder that made her momentary good mood disappear. "Don't forget to talk to Felix." And then he disappeared from the doorway.

Grumbling under her breath, Adi ate her apple in record time and prepared to face the day.

As promised, Felix was waiting for her at the bottom of the ladder, twisting one of many rings around his finger.

"Um, hi?" Adi greeted, confused, when he said nothing.

"I have to warn you. Pan does this thing where he gets Tootles to teach you the right way to act. He thinks it's imperative that you learn, and since you're not listening to him, he recruited someone else. You're being too insubordinate. So either tone it down a little or listen to Tootles, whichever," Felix told her, leaning against the ladder.

She raised an eyebrow and squinted at him. "Tone down my _personality_?"

"No, just the part that makes you fight against him at every possible second."

"Yeah, that's my personality," she said flatly. "Why are you telling me this, anyway?"

"Adi," Felix said, exasperated. "I'm trying to be your friend, if you hadn't noticed."

"My friend?" she repeated. She got the feeling he didn't go friend hunting all that often. "I thought you didn't like me."

"You're a pain in the ass, but at least you're kind of amusing."

Adi fumbled for a reply, but it turned out she didn't have to when Tootles appeared at Felix's shoulder. "I need you."

"Cool," she replied. "I don't care."

Tootles rolled his eyes. "It's important. Pan's orders."

"Oh, wow," Adi said, theatrically widening her eyes. "That must mean I _have_ to do what you say."

Before he walked away, Felix shot her a look, as if to say _remember what I told you_. She glared at his retreating figure.

"Shut up, Adi." Tootles rolled his eyes and led her away from the ladder, toward the middle of the compound. "I've been told I'm good at getting concise points across, so Pan is usually the one who makes me get the scared boys to act braver. But he asked me to tell you something special: stop."

"Okay, noted. Is that all?"

"Let me finish," he said impatiently. "Usually, new arrivals won't do anything. You're the exact opposite. Stop rebelling, stop resisting, just stop. It's getting old. I know you think it's cute, but it's not."

Felix had told her Pan had made Tootles do this because she wasn't listening to him. That meant she was doing everything right.

Adi over exaggerated her smile at him. "I'm not cute, I'm freaking adorable."

"Stop that, too. You're never going to fit in if you don't stop fighting."

"I'll keep that in mind, Tootles. Is that it? Or are you just the behavior police now?"

He sighed, shaking his head at her. "That's it."

"Excellent. Because if you'll excuse me, I'm going to be blatantly ignoring everything you told me while I practice my knife-throwing."

'Insubordination' as they called it wasn't something Adi intentionally did. It was simply in her nature to resist whatever authority was put over her. Not because she wanted to, but because she hated being told what to do.

 _You're never going to fit in._

 _Never is a funny word_ , Adi thought. _Because even when you think something will never happen, it always does. It always does_.

* * *

They were doing that thing again.

The one that made Adi dig her fingernails into her palms and grit her teeth so hard they hurt so that she wouldn't stand up to join in their stupid dance. None of the boys were coordinated, or even good at dancing. She shouldn't have even had to think twice about entering the haphazard ring around the fire.

It was the music. Pan knew it, too. He tauntingly met Adi's eyes between the flashes of the boys that blocked him from her view, playing a beautiful melody that sounded like both a lullaby and an army march at the same time.

The pipes had to be magic. There was no other way he could play a simple instrument like that and create such an appealing sound. No one could.

Even after Adi looked away, she could still feel Pan's pervasive gaze on her slouched form. For a while, she could tolerate it, but the longer she stayed there, the more uncomfortable she felt.

Abruptly, Adi stood and turned to walk into the woods. The night's darkness amplified her fear. She had gotten lost in it before, and no doubt she would again.

She hesitated.

The song dropped an octave so low she could feel it resonating inside her bones. Her muscles were heavy with tension. Without a second look back, she stepped through the trees.

A vague path was outlined on the forest floor. Adi pulled the unfurled map Slightly had given her and glanced over it, straining her eyes in the dark. Then it occurred to her that she was being idiotic, and summoned a flame to her free hand.

The tune faded the further she walked. Adi was glad to rid her head of the alluring song.

In the flickering light, she was able to make out the lightly sketched lines from the camp connecting to almost every landmark on the island - the cliff, the caves, the mountain, the beach. It seemed she had missed them and been distracted by all the new places.

All that remained was the mysterious western half.

She shook her head. It looked like the path she had chosen - it would've been nice to know about those when she was lost the other day - led to either the beach or the cliff, so she kept going. Being lost here was better than being stuck there with Pan and his brainwashed soldiers.

Eventually, the trail ended to reveal the beach, a long stretch of sand that she presumed wrapped around the whole of the island. The water was calm, and lapped at the shore quietly, the only noise in the still night.

Out here, the stars reflected against the smooth, glassy surface of the ocean that spanned out forever and ever. The stars. Hers. What she knew best in the whole world.

Adi trained her eyes on the clear, cloudless sky. There was no light pollution, no moon to obscure the constellations here.

Depending on what time of year it was in this realm, the stars would differ. Adi looked for either Orion or Hercules, the two most prominent in winter and summer, respectively.

But the more she searched, the less she found. Even the Big Dipper was missing – the easiest one of them all.

The constellations she had come to know like the back of her hand had disappeared; in their places were scattered collections of unnamed stars.

Suddenly, the darkness seemed absolute and harsh against Adi's skin. Unfamiliarity didn't settle against her skin well. It felt disjointed, like she had swallowed a pill wrong and it stuck in the back of her throat.

With a deep sigh, she turned from the unwelcoming heavens and started the weary walk back to camp.

Out of place in Storybrooke, out of place in Neverland.

Adi was running out of places to run to.


	6. Are You Afraid

1.06 | Are You Afraid

"And god knows I'm not dying  
but I bleed now."  
My Blood - Ellie Goulding

* * *

NEVERLAND FUELED DREAMS.

It seemed the island's magic was particularly good at magnifying the particularly strange ones Adi had been having. There was no other explanation for the vividly detailed recurring nightmares she'd been having about being a pirate.

Neverland and its inhabitants had taught her a few things, and she had accepted (most of) them without question. But these dreams were too real, too intense, and far too specific to ignore. Pirates, ships, swords, blood - lots of blood.

Adi dragged the knife for the seventh time over the arrowhead before she deemed it sharp enough and moved onto the next. Around her, the air was still save for the squeal of metal on metal, silver against iron as she sharpened the tip to a deadly point.

This was one of the few things she could do to appear busy while allowing herself some room to breathe. She had grown to like most of the boys, but they tended to become overbearing. Especially because there were fifteen of them and only one of her. They needed some more Lost Girls before Adi went insane from the obnoxious amounts of testosterone in this place.

"Adeline."

Speaking of too much testosterone.

"What?" she asked, not taking her focus from the task at hand. "I'm busy."

A snort, followed by the sounds of footsteps approaching. "No, you're not. You've been at it for at least half an hour now."

Adi revolved on the tree stump she was sitting on so that she could squint up into the light at Pan. The setting sun behind him spilled golden rays around his head and over his shoulders; he looked like some kind of dark, smirking angel.

"Your point?"

He chuckled softly. "They should be pretty sharp by now."

"Are you willing to test that theory?" Adi questioned, standing and turning in the same motion, shoving the arrow in her hand directly beneath his chin. Her eyebrows raised high, head tilted to the side: a challenge.

Uncannily like the grate of the dagger against the arrow, her eyes met his in a collision of taunting and determined sparks.

"Yes, actually, I am." Pan stepped back a considerable amount and spread his arms wide. An invitation for her to attack him. Of all the possible responses he could have had, that was the one she least expected. "You shoot me, you can do whatever you want for the rest of today. You don't, you have to come with me."

There was no backing down now. Adi picked her bow off the ground and strung the arrow she was holding.

There was a momentary hesitation in the space between the draw and the release, enough for her to feel an ounce of unease, but she released the string along with her breath.

Half of her hoped she would miss. The other, more intelligent and optimistic half, prayed it would hit him directly in the heart like she had predicted - partly to prove him wrong, partly to hurt him both physically and egotistically.

Unfortunately, neither Pan's physique nor his ego suffered any casualties. Not because Adi had missed, but because he had caught the arrow inches away from it cutting into his skin and slicing his chest open.

Adi lowered the bow, shocked. "Alright, how many times did you rehearse that to get it just right?"

In reply, Pan only laughed and handed her the arrow. "You lost, Adeline. Time for some more magic lessons."

For someone resisted everything imposed on her, Adi was good for keeping her word. The bet with Pan was one of those terrible times when she wished she was a liar and a cheater.

"Yeah, yeah," she muttered under her breath. "Lead the way, _sir_."

Pan pressed his hand against the small of her back to push her ahead of him. She tensed, resisting the urge to smack him away. If he noticed, he didn't say anything.

"Actually, you'll lead the way. Experience is the one way to learn how to navigate, and judging by the multiple times you've gotten lost, I assume you have no experience."

"Really?" Adi asked as she took one of the paths at random. "You must be thinking of someone else. I have plenty of experience in these woods. See, over there we have...a tree. And another tree. And - oh, look! Some branches. On another tree. Fascinating."

Though she was in front of him, Adi could almost see Pan rolling his eyes. Call it a sixth sense.

"Anyway," she continued. "Where exactly am I supposed to be taking us? Somewhere I won't set anything on fire?"

"Not yet," he replied vaguely. "Here should do just fine."

Adi pulled up short in the middle of the path and turned around to raise an eyebrow at Pan. "Uh...what?"

His eyes were glittering. Lips captured in that signature smirk of his that set sirens off inside Adi's head. Not just because it looked good on him, but because it usually meant something bad was about to happen.

"You're going to learn how to teleport."

"How to what now?"

And then, right before her eyes, Pan vanished. A slight swish of wind sounded behind Adi and she whirled around, heart racing, to see him again, inches away from her face.

"Like that."

"Okay. Let's do it."

"All you have to do is imagine yourself there. Envision the place in your mind, believe you will be there, and you will be. As long as it's on Neverland."

There was that word again. Believe. This island required a lot of faith Adi wasn't entirely sure she had.

Adi frowned. "It seems too easy."

"That's good. There isn't a lot of magic involved. You can move quickly during a fight without tiring and still have enough energy left to defend yourself." As Pan said it, he disappeared from view and popped up beside her; she didn't turn to look. The volume of his voice and sound of wind told her enough. If he was trying to intimidate her, it wasn't working.

"I'll keep that in mind."

Not many places on the island were well-ingrained into her memory yet. Even the ones she frequented most were difficult to envision when she focused too hard on them: the camp, some parts of the woods that looked all the same, the cliff, the beach. She settled on the latter.

Remember the crash of waves against sand, the infinite sea of blue, the pale and cloudless sky spanning out forever, the warm breeze against her shoulders, the salt in her nose, nostalgia in her mouth.

When Adi opened her eyes, she was there. It looked different during the day, but not by much; the main discrepancy was the sun filtering through the trees at the edge of the jungle, scattering fluttering shadows across the sand.

Not a second later, Pan found her. Either he already had her all figured out (she hoped to whatever entities existed here that wasn't the case) or he had some way to track her movements (which was equally terrifying).

Adi's lips curved into a wicked smirk. "Catch me if you can!" She promptly vanished, the small whoosh of air she left behind not fully gone before Pan dissipated after her.

To the camp, through the woods, across the island, Pan followed Adi until he anticipated her arrival at the cliff and surprised her, nearly making her fall to the water below had he not gripped her wrist and tugged her back toward land.

Breathless, Adi grinned. "This is fun."

She expected some kind of teasing, arrogant reply. Instead, Pan's eyes glistened with in the dying daylight, his fingers locking tighter around her skin. "Good."

Suddenly nervous, Adi stepped back and ripped her wrist from his grip. "Is there something else we need to do?"

Up until now, she had been able to hold her own and more against Pan. But now, as he leered down at her and she cowered exactly like he wanted her to, she couldn't help but feel like the resistance she put up was no match for him.

"Yes," Pan said. Finally, he moved away from her but that demeanor of malice still hung about him like a thick fog.

There was no time to question it, for he grasped her by the shoulder and teleported with her in tow. Going in tandem was, for some unknown reason, undeniably worse. Adi felt like her insides were being squeezed through a thin tube.

"It's dark," she said plainly. Back at the cliff, the evening hung over them in the clear sky and illuminated the area. In the forest, the branches arching high above them blocked out most of the light. Not being able to see was rather unnerving - not being able to see where Pan stood was even worse. And he still held her shoulder with a tense grip. "Also, don't touch me."

His fingers disappeared. Then his voice came, low and uncharacteristically soft, somewhere off to her lift. "There is a tree about seven feet in front of you." Even though she had literally just told him not to, his hand found hers and he raised it in front of her. Like she couldn't have done that on her own. "I want you to set it on fire."

Immediately, Adi smacked his arm away from hers, unable to mask the alarm in her tone. "What?"

"You heard me, Adeline," Pan replied evenly. "If you want to conquer your magical abilities, this is part of how you do it."

"The only thing I'm going to do is set the entire forest on fire."

"Adeline." Again, his fingertips brushed against her palm where the fire would emanate from. "I know you can control it."

Adi could only hope he was right as she exhaled deeply, channeling all the heat to her palm and believing it to ignite the stupid tree. In a matter of seconds, the clearing was bathed in a rusty orange light, scattering heat around the already warm air. Flames licked the leaves and sent them curling into each other as they blackened to ash. Smoke trailed into the sky like a tornado.

This close, heat pressing against her cheeks, the only way Adi could describe it was beautiful. A fearful captivation rooted her to the spot. She didn't move until Pan forced her back from the inferno - the fire had spread to the grass by their feet - and told her to extinguish it.

Arm raised, she turned to look at him for a split second. His eyes looked almost black in the dim light, wicked smile gracing his lips. Despite the temperature, she shivered.

Her magic brought the flames to a halt. Shrouded in darkness once more, all Adi knew was that Pan was close enough for her to feel his breath brush past her cheek, and that the breeze was heavy with the acrid stench of smoke.

"Are you afraid?" he asked into the sudden silence, voice mixing with the smoke that surrounded them.

Afraid of him? Or of the fire?

"No," she said. "I'm not."

* * *

All Adi knew was that she had absolutely no idea how to handle a sword. So when Slightly handed her a peculiar rose gold blade and told her to get ready, she wasn't quite prepared. Her stomach still churned - and not just because she thought she was about to get gutted like a fish - from the magic practice with Pan that ended not twenty minutes ago.

She gripped the hilt of her sword tighter. She preferred distance fighting; standing this close to her opponent felt disjointed, wrong.

"You ready?" Slightly asked over the sounds of the boys who had already begun fighting.

Nodding although her mind was screaming the opposite, Adi waited for him to make the first move.

He lunged forward, blade inches away from her stomach; she met his blade in a clash so loud it echoed inside her skull. Slightly stumbled back with the force of her redirect, the ghost of a laugh on his lips - however, it faded when Adi went for the offensive, swinging her sword at his side. He ducked, bringing his up to her side, slicing through the waistline of her shirt.

Now both of her sides were injured: left bruised, right bleeding.

Adi hissed in pain but kept fighting. It went like that for a while: him attacking and her avoiding, nursing her right, until Slightly rotated around her so that they switched places. With her back now to the trees and his to the camp, he advanced on her until she backed up so far she ran out of room.

Her shoulder blades against the rough bark, Adi could feel her heartbeat in her ears though she knew deep down that Slightly wouldn't really hurt her. She swung her sword in one last halfhearted attempt to ward him off, but he smacked it so hard it fell from her fingertips. It clattered to the dirt below and sent up a cloud of dust by his feet.

Slightly dramatically leveled his blade with her throat. "I win!"

Grinning brightly, he stepped away from Adi as she rolled her eyes and reclaimed her discarded weapon. She had seen it coming, but the loss still stung at her pride.

Blood trickled from her hip as well as from a few places along her forearms. Slightly, too, had scratches along his cheeks, but none as bad as hers.

A glance around told her several others were injured as well. Tootles' neck was bleeding. Ace's shirt was shredded in multiple places. Leo's sword was on the ground - he had punched West in the face. The older boy sported a split lip and a cross expression. A few others were still at it.

Adi turned back to her cut. It barely hurt, but it was bleeding a lot more than it should have. She pulled her hand away and was surprised to see it covered in crimson liquid, dense, warm, and slick against her pale skin.

 _The sword Killian tossed Fallon was much too heavy for her, but there was no time for protest. Her bow wouldn't do much good in close range combat. Besides, even if she did want to exchange her blade, it was too late - one of them was already after her._

 _Fallon met the man's sword with a clash of sparks and drove him back, parrying each of his blows. He was strong, but she was smart. Pirates had a tendency to be dumb yet brave; being intelligent and nimble served Fallon well._

 _And there was the threat of her magic that she still could not control. She would rather take him down with her own hands, but the option still remained - along with the risk of blowing up the entire ship._

 _Fallon's focus shifted as she glanced around to assess the damages of the already fallen. He noticed. Before she could raise her sword to defend herself, he swiped the tip of his blade across her front, creating a wound that stretched all the way from her right hip to the middle of her abdomen._

 _Hissing curses under her breath, Fallon lunged forward with renewed vigor despite the agony that flared up. Adrenaline momentarily blocked it out._

 _She swiped and swung and yelled taunts at him all until he hit one of the thick masts and couldn't move without getting sliced by any of the others fighting all around them._

 _Fallon leveled the sword with his neck. She didn't miss the shivers that shook his shoulders. But that didn't stop her from ramming the blade into his throat without a second more of hesitation, didn't stop her from running him through the middle with it, didn't stop her from baring her teeth down at him as he slid to the floor, choking on his own blood._

 _Some of the chaos had died down. Or maybe that was only Fallon thinking it did due to the ringing in her ears blocking out all other noise._

 _She leaned against the bloodstained mast, pressing a hand to her middle. Deep red coated the entirety of her skin; she could feel it trickling down her waist as well, slick and hot._

 _There was a lot of blood. The ringing grew louder. Clouds dotted her vision. A voice called her name._

 _And then - Fallon hated herself for it - there was nothing but darkness splotched with gray_.

"Adi?"

She let out a breath she couldn't remember holding. Since when was she sitting on the ground? And why were a good half of the boys in a semicircle around her like she was some kind of zoo animal? Her mouth tasted like copper and sand at the same time.

"What?" Her voice sounded far away, like it didn't belong to her. She blinked, hard, and drew a large breath. "I'm okay."

"You sure about that?" Slightly questioned, looking down at her with doubt clear in his eyes. "You're bleeding a lot."

"I am?" And, sure enough, when Adi glanced at her middle, blood marred the skin of her waist. "Oh. I am." She looked up at Pan. "Can I heal myself with magic, or is that, like, not a thing?"

"Let me do it." He knelt down next to her and peeled the right side of her shirt up just enough to see the wound, which was caked with dry blood and still bleeding. Then he waved his hand over her and the pain disappeared; the skin sealed itself (which was potentially the strangest thing Adi had ever seen) into a thin, white scar. "What is this scar from?"

Adi stared at him. "Um...a sword?"

"No," Pan shook his head and motioned to a spot a little above the new scar.

It was odd, because Adi could not find an answer. For as long as she could remember, it had been there with no explanation. No pain, no memory, nothing. Just a pale line that stretched across the majority of her abdomen. Long ago, she was struck by phantom pains every time she looked at it, but they had long since ceased.

"I don't know." She shrugged. "Can I get up now?"

"Are you okay?" Slightly felt the need to ask, though there was no reason she shouldn't have been okay.

"I wouldn't get up if I wasn't okay."

Felix offered her a hand and hauled her to her feet. White spots danced in front of her eyes. Adi clutched him to steady herself until she felt collected enough to stand upright on her own. When she let go of him, she exhaled slowly once more and faced the boys. Pan, Felix, Slightly, Tootles, Ace, Max, Leo: the ones who knew her well enough to care.

Pan cocked an eyebrow and leaned back to look over Adi with vague interest. "What was that?" And possibly concern, but she wasn't sure if she had actually heard him sound worried or if it was her imagination.

She opened her mouth to reply, but Leo beat her to it. "Don't worry, Pan. It's happened before. She kind of zones out for a minute or two and then zaps back to reality really confused."

"And dizzy," Tootles added.

"And, for once, not angry." Adi whirled around to glower vehemently at Max. He cringed and put his hands up in a gesture of surrender. "I take it back."

Adi rolled her eyes and turned back to the group at large. "It's not a big deal. It's happened a few times before, but mostly when I'm really tired, so I think it's just that." For show, she yawned. "See? I'm tired. That's it."

It was difficult to tell if she was convincing herself or them.

Pan seemed to think otherwise. He reached forward to push a stray piece of hair from her face. Adi could only feel uncomfortable with all the others watching them intently. "You need to tell me the next time it happens. We can't have you catatonic before you've realized your full potential."

"Of course," Adi said icily. "Wouldn't want to ruin your plans to use me for world domination. Or whatever it is you seem to think I'm going to do for you. I'm going to bed."

A few of the boys shot goodnights after her, but for the most part, silence followed. Even as she climbed the ladder and shut the hut door behind her, she couldn't help but feel like she was being watched.

Adi fought back a shudder and sat on her bed, pulling out the journal she had stowed in the space between the mattress and wooden bedframe. It had been a while since she had last written in it; she could only hope Pan didn't notice that she had taken one of his notebooks.

And if he did notice, she hoped he was willing to fight her on it.

 _my name is adeline morris. that much i know._

 _so why do i keep seeing these visions where i'm not adi, and i'm someone else entirely? my dreams - i haven't dreamed anything other than these - tell me my name is fallon and i kill people. without regretting anything, like a sociopath. they tell me i have a brother, that the two of us and a band of ragtag men fight and kill and steal and take and do everything we shouldn't in the name of something we think is justified._

 _the weirdest thing is that i see these in first person, not in third. it's like i'm her, i'm the one telling the story, instead of watching her through an omniscient point of view._

 _i blanked out again today. it happens sometimes, and i barely remember what happens in the minute space between reality and the limbo i fall into. until today. i don't remember much except for the vague memory of blood and shouting. but it felt familiar, even though i don't remember anything like it._

 _maybe i'm going crazy. maybe neverland is taking away my sanity, or making me have absurd daydreams like it's been taking over my real dreams._

 _either way, it's weird, and i don't like it. whoever fallon is, she needs to mind her own damn business_.

"Didn't think of you as the type to write in a diary," Pan suddenly said from across the room as he shut the door behind him.

Speaking of minding their own damn business.

"I wasn't until now."

"And why's that?" he asked, crossing the room in a matter of steps to stand at the foot of her bed. "Worried you can't talk to me about your problems?"

 _You're one of them._

Adi had to crane her neck to look him in the eyes. In the faint candlelight, shadows danced menacingly across his face.

A few possible responses flashed through her mind, but she chose a single answer - not a sarcastic one, but one that she said with such a manner of tranquility that it caused Pan to look worried. Now she knew what it looked like on him.

"Worried this place is driving me insane."

There was a pause. Then he moved closer to her, so close she could see the flecks of gold in his forest eyes. "Insanity is good." he said. "Hold onto it, because you're going to need it."


	7. Learning to Die

**1.07 | Learning to Die**

"Got you wrapped around my finger, babe;  
you can count on me to misbehave."  
Primadonna - Marina & the Diamonds

* * *

IN THE MORNING, Pan took Adi to the same clearing she had first learned to create fire in, the first time she had believed in magic. And in herself, as cliché as it sounds.

Adi hated those, which was ironic, considering her entire life had become one gigantic, festering cliché.

The morning dawned above the two of them, clear and sunny, already stifling and humid. Pan looked, for lack of a better word, excited. It made her uneasy.

"So what exactly is this?"

"How you eradicate your fear," Pan replied. Without waiting for her response, he idly waved his hand in the general area behind Adi. She turned just in time to see the fading aftereffects of his emerald magic floating off of two vaguely humanoid figures, black and hazy like walking shadows.

"What are they?" Adi asked warily, loading her bow.

"It's a game. I call it target practice."

"That doesn't answer my question."

"They're targets, Adeline. Practice fighting them. Hurt them - it's not like they're going to bleed." His reply was swift, impatient, like he couldn't wait to see her kill or be killed.

Hesitantly, Adi stepped forward and shot an arrow into the one on the right. Half of her expected it to fly right through the thing like it was made of fog, but it stuck in where she supposed its chest would be. Instead of stumbling, falling, or yelling in pain like a human would, this thing ripped the arrow out, unfazed, and began advancing toward her.

All her mind could think was: _bad. Very bad._

Adi dropped her bow by her feet and believed in a dagger in its place. From its reaction, she could gauge that a distance weapon probably wasn't the way to go with whatever these things were. She got as close as she dared with her blade held out defensively. They weren't real, but she still didn't want to kill them - if they even could be killed.

Either the phantom wasn't sentient enough to sense the imminent danger, or it detected Adi's apprehension, or maybe it just didn't care, because it came at her anyway.

"Kill it!"

Vaguely, Adi registered Pan's demanding cry. But she wouldn't act on it. Even though she was perfectly aware that they weren't real, she knew exactly what he was trying to do.

And she wasn't going to let him tell her what to do. The problem was that these shadows weren't going to go down easily.

While Adi paused to debate this, her knife hovering between the shadow and herself, she momentarily forgot one crucial piece of information.

There were two.

Whirling around, she realized she was half a second too late. The second outline touched her right arm and her skin began to bubble, white hot beneath its feathery touch. She wrenched her arm away and shoved her dagger through its wrist. Behind her, the first's fiery grasp found the back of her neck.

Somewhere through the agony, she heard Pan yell for her to kill them. Her only reply was to clench her teeth shut so hard they might've broken.

That was exactly what he wanted her to do, but she wouldn't give him the satisfaction of listening, even if it meant burning the skin off of her body.

The dagger slipped from her grasp and landed on the ground as she cried aloud in agony. Shadow number one had wrapped its foggy hands around her neck, and number two had her entire right arm in a screaming ache.

Searing pain. At some point, Adi vaguely registered falling to her knees, and at another, she remembered feeling like her insides were aflame as well.

Everything was on fire and she was probably shouting at the top of her lungs.

And then, just like that, it was gone.

Pan was standing over her looking pissed as ever while Adi coughed her insides out. Her throat was coated in sandpaper.

"What on earth was that?" Pan half shouted as Adi lifted herself up, breathless and exhausted and sweating.

"I tried to fight them," she exhaled and shrugged offhandedly as she examined her arm, which looked to be badly sunburned. "But I guess I'm off my game today."

Shaking his head, Pan glared down at her. "No, you're not. That was nowhere near your best try, even on a bad day. That was you blatantly disobeying me."

"So what if it was?" Adi challenged, shifting her weight and looking up at him now.

"You're so hell bent on disobeying me that it almost got you killed!"

This was what Tootles was talking about. Pan getting sick of her rebellious routine. That was the problem - it wasn't a routine. It was simply _her_ , and she refused to change for some arrogant kid who called himself a king.

"I knew you wouldn't let me die." She smirked haughtily. "Not after all the training, not after you continuously telling me I'm special and important. Face it, Pan, I knew when to call your bluff."

Pan stared at her blankly for a moment, like he couldn't possibly comprehend her stupidity. "It wasn't a bluff. That exercise was to get you to think on your feet, to learn how to fight to kill, to be aggressive."

"Yeah, well, guess I'm not aggressive."

"You wouldn't call this aggressive?" Pan motioned between the two of them.

Adi rolled her eyes. "I'd call this a...rousing discussion. That I'm clearly winning."

He snorted. "Was that a threat?"

"It's whatever you want it to be, Pan. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've had enough of training for today." She turned to walk into the forest - which she prayed she knew well enough to at least find her way back to camp - with an air of finality, but turned when she heard Pan laughing. "What?"

"You would have wanted to kill them if I told you not to. This was just your way of saying that you're still not going to listen. But trust me, you're going to listen. I'm going to make you."

"Was _that_ a threat?"

"It's whatever you want it to be, Adeline."

Though her back was to him, she could almost smell the devilish smirk on his lips, see the glitter of mischief in his eyes.

"You know what, Pan?" Adi half turned around so she could fully look at him. Sure enough, he looked exactly as she had predicted. "No words in the English language would be able to properly describe how infuriating you are."

His voice rang through the trees long after she had departed the clearing and began her journey back to camp. "Neverland is forever, Adeline; I'm sure you'll have time to find some."

* * *

Over in the corner of Pan's tree house, stacked along the low table by the foot of his bed, sat four books in a neat stack.

The first was a worn copy of _Peter Pan_ by J.M. Barrie. So Pan did know about the altered story of himself in Adi's world. Perhaps he had it as a reference point to figure out exactly how _not_ to act.

 _Neverland_ was scribbled in cursive along the top of the next one. It was handwritten on heavy, wrinkled pages, and all the ink was smudged. From what she could tell, it held information about the island. It was likely written by Pan, but she hadn't pegged him as someone to write a whole textbook about Neverland.

 _Once Upon a Time_. No author. Heavier, thicker, longer than the others, and embellished in a carving that spread all along both tan covers. Inside, the pages were covered in beautiful watercolors and perfectly centered typewritten text.

The last, and perhaps most unsettling of all, was a thin leather journal the color of sand and bound with a silver lock. No identification, but Adi could assume Pan didn't want her anywhere near it, because attempting to unlock it with magic proved to be futile.

Adi pried the faded volume labeled _Neverland_ from the stack after a moment's consideration, and went to sit criss-crossed like a kindergartner on her messily made bed.

There was no table of contents, nor were there headings at the tops of pages. The information went on in brief staccatos and random paragraphs with large blank spaces between them for some 100 pages. A few sketchily penned drawings dotted the paper here and there, but they looked more like a child's art project rather than diagrams from an encyclopedia.

Page one was still a work in progress. It was the only one to have a title: "LOST BOYS" - except "BOYS" had been scratched out and rephrased to "ONES." Adi's full name was written at the bottom, below Christopher's.

Some of the names had been crossed out. One was blotted with so much ink it was impossible to make out what had been written before. A chill shot down Adi's spine.

The next was about the history of the island and its past inhabitants - the Indians of the Earth Peter Pan story were mythical - up until Pan's takeover of it. There weren't many - or perhaps Pan didn't care enough to name them.

Somewhere around page seven identified all the major landmarks of Neverland. Adi had vague perceptions of where things were from her map, but she still didn't know what their purposes were, if any.

Dark Hollow housed all of Pan's stolen shadows - a sentence that confused Adi more than anything. Neverpeak Mountain was home to Dead Man's Peak, where a magical spring of water ran that could cure any ill.

The Echo Caves, carved into the base of the mountain, was a chain of three separate caves, each with a specific purpose. Echo wouldn't let you leave until you spoke your darkest secret aloud. Eidolon showed you your deepest desire. Ensorcel played your worst fears out in front of you. And you couldn't leave until you'd gone through all three and endured their challenges.

Adi chewed on her lip absently and flipped a few more pages, skimming over paragraphs. There was plenty of unnecessary information, like the indigenous plants and animals. It was difficult to imagine the dangerous Peter Pan researching different types of leaves and recording them in perfect handwriting in his journal.

The page after elaborated on Dark Hollow. Adi knew the tale of how Peter Pan's shadow was separated from his body, and they were two different beings, but she didn't know how painful it was to rip one off.

 _Dark Hollow is where all of Neverland's shadows are imprisoned. The first shadow to live on the island was the Neverland Shade, which welcomed the first people to the island thousands of years ago. The Shade is dangerous. It harbors a hatred for those who don't belong on Neverland, because outsiders killed those he first brought to the island. It is extremely hostile. However, Peter Pan's shadow and all the others he captures are under the King of Neverland's command. His is a separate being from the rest, and follows only his command_.

The King of Neverland. Sometimes Adi referred to him as that in her head, as a mild joke, but Pan wrote that title for himself with intention

The idea of that unnerved her enough that she closed the book and picked up the volume labeled _Once Upon a Time_ instead.

There was no dedication. No publication date. No credit to any author or illustrator.

Adi began to flip through the stories, searching for an interesting one. None seemed to stick out to her.

None, until she found the picture of the pirate ship and its warbled reflection in the water below that looked alarmingly similar to the one from her dreams.

A sudden swish of wind made her drop the book and jump back, heart racing.

The spine hit the ground with a resonating crack. It was then that Adi realized she had been caught. There was nothing wrong with what she was doing, but the fact that Pan's appearance jarred her so much was indicative of guilt.

Pan picked up the book, eyebrows raised. "Searching for words to properly describe how infuriating I am?" Then he glanced at the cover and frowned. "You won't find any in there."

"No, I've come up with a couple on my own, but they're quite profane, so I'll keep them in here. For me only." Adi tapped her temple with a smirk. "Now, what exactly do you want? And I swear if you say more training, I'm going to drown myself in the lagoon."

"I wanted to play a game," he said as he leaned down to pick her bow from the floor and handed it to her. "It'll be fun."

Why Pan was acting like nothing was wrong was beyond her. Was it not two hours ago that they had shouted at each other after her (failed) practice session?

"You and I have very different definitions of fun," she replied flatly, though she accepted her weapon and stood. "Either way, I'm game. No pun intended."

He led her outside, to where most of the Lost Boys had congregated around the general target area and surrounded themselves in low chatter.

"Are your arrows sharpened?" When Adi nodded, Pan grinned. "Excellent." And stepped closer to her, so close she could see the perfectly pure green of his emerald eyes, so close she swore he could kiss her if he really wanted to. Then he backed away with something in his hand. He had only gotten close to take three arrows from her quiver.

"I'm going to cover these in dreamshade," he continued, raising his voice so everyone could hear them. "It's a nasty poison that kills the affected in an extremely short amount of time. Three boys will stand in front of targets. Your job is to hit the target without hitting them. You do so accidentally, they die."

Another bluff. Adi could feel it in his words. This was his way of playing with her yet again, his way of forcing her to comply out of fear of hurting someone else.

And if she backed out now, with all of their eyes already on her, she'd look like a coward. She had to admit, Pan knew how to play all of his cards right.

Then again, so did Adi. There was a pause in which she glanced from the bow to the arrows in Pan's hand to the few of her friends she recognized in the crowd of boys. "Who?"

Pan seemed to take that as her affirmation. "Slightly, Ace, Felix. Against the targets."

 _Of course. He picks the ones I've become to. But I'm one step ahead_.

The boys parted for the three of them; Slightly on the left, Ace in the middle, Felix on the right. Max shot Adi a reassuring smile as she went to stand in the gap they had made.

"Good luck," Pan told her as he handed her the first arrow. Their fingers brushed, but Adi refused to meet his gaze.

Slightly was first. A few inches shorter than Adi, his head landed right in the middle of the bullseye. To not touch him, she would have to aim a little above his hairline. The poison might have been a lie, but the deadly sharp points of her arrows were not.

Adi strung the arrow, very much aware of the inky, tar-like liquid slathered across the iron tip: black, like death. It couldn't have, but it almost made her hands feel heavier. She exhaled.

"Today, Adeline."

"Kiss my ass, Pan," she hissed as she released the bowstring. The arrow lodged itself about an inch from Slightly's head; he breathed a deep sigh of relief and peeled himself away from the target board.

Silence. And then Felix's rough voice sliced through the quiet like a knife. "You're holding the bow wrong, you know."

"Excuse me?" Adi stared at him incredulously. She'd made it this long on the island without being corrected, and she was a better shot than most of the boys.

He shifted against the target and looked coolly back at her. "Your right hand is supposed to hold the string."

She looked down. Right on body, left on string. It felt right that way, more balanced and controlled. "Thanks for the advice," she said dryly. "But I'm doing just fine."

"I'd rather you not shoot me," he replied in a monotone drawl, but he was smiling a little.

Raising an eyebrow, Adi tilted her head to the side. "And you figured you should wait to tell me until after I'd already shot at Slightly?"

Before Felix could reply, Pan was handing her the next arrow. His hand touched hers again. Adi turned to scowl at him, but said nothing.

Back to the target. Ace was second. He was younger, a lot shorter than Slightly, about level with the third red ring. Adi shot the next arrow. It landed a few centimeters away from the boy, who flinched but grinned all the same. Pan, however, didn't seem to be pleased.

"You can do better."

Adi rounded on him, fire in her eyes. "You want me to kill Felix? Cause I can, if you think I'm good enough to get closer without poisoning him." She yanked the dreamshade-ridden arrow from his grasp and faced the targets, ready to draw it, but Pan caught her wrist.

Anger boiled through her, heating her veins. "I believe we've been over this before, but I do not want your hands on me, got it?"

Without waiting for a reply, Adi wrenched her arm from his hand and turned to Felix while nocking the arrow in one fluid motion. There was point in aiming when Pan was only going to use that time yell at her.

It was reckless, even dangerous, because she could have nailed Felix in the eye, but she couldn't bring herself to care.

The arrow skimmed over the top of Felix's pale hair and pierced the target but let him unscathed. He moved out from beneath it, ducking so he didn't hit his head. Adi supposed it didn't matter if she wasn't holding it right as long as he was still alive.

"That close enough for you?" she spat, bow clutched so tight she thought she might break it. Adrenaline and fury pulsed through her, sharp as a blade.

Pan stared calmly at her. "You could have killed him."

She snorted. "Please. The worst I could have done was make him bleed a little."

"Did you miss the part where I told you about the deadly poison your arrows were dipped in?" His eyebrow rose dangerously. It didn't scare her. Not when Adi thought she had figured out what was going on.

"No, I didn't, but I'm not as stupid as you think I am. Quite the opposite, actually. So I'm calling your bluff: the poison isn't real. You only told me it was to get me to listen to you, like you told me you would this morning. I'm not falling for it, Pan."

"Not falling for it?" he asked with a mildly amused smile. "Nothing to fall for when I'm not lying. I'd never lie to you, Adeline."

As if contemplating this, Adi tilted her head to the side. Then she let out a sharp laugh. "I find that a little hard to believe. And I'm going to prove it to you."

She walked over to the targets and pulled the arrow she'd shot at Felix from the peeling white paint it had landed in. The iron-cast tip was still heavily coated with the shining ebony poison, as was the puncture mark it made where it had connected with the board. Like splatter paint, flecks of it dotted the faded white here and there.

"Adi," Felix didn't sound scared, but exhausted. "Don't."

"You're in on it, too?" she asked, shaking her head.

He shot her an exasperated look that made her hesitate, but she chose to ignore it.

If Pan was telling the truth, wouldn't one of the boys have made a better attempt to stop her?

Besides, items on Pan's list of things he didn't want Adi to do were definitely in line with the items on Adi's list of things she wanted to do.

"And what exactly do you plan on doing with that?" Pan asked into the dead silence.

"Isn't it obvious?" Adi retorted with the ghost of a grin on her lips. She glanced at the arrow in her hand. Some of the thick liquid had dripped off of the tip and landed in patches on the dead grass at her feet. "I'm going to prove you wrong."

He didn't seem to quite understand what she was planning on doing until it was too late, or perhaps he didn't care enough to stop her.

Adi dragged the dreamshade infused arrow down her bare right forearm with gritted teeth and a dangerous glare. Pain bloomed the further it went. But that was expected, as most sharp objects hurt when stricken against skin.

The inky substance disappeared into the crimson blood of the open wound. Adi let her hand fall to her side, smiling victoriously. The cut was bleeding profusely, but other than that, she felt fine.

"See? Nothing. I was right."

Slightly stared at her, horror-stricken. Max had terror written all over his face. Ace looked like he might be sick. Tootles was shaking his head. Felix had his eyes narrowed and his lip between his teeth.

Right when Adi glanced away from them, it happened. The false poison she thought had dissipated harmlessly into her bloodstream resurfaced, this time in dark veins that slowly crawled up her arm and toward her throat and heart. Horrified, she watched them stretch across her skin.

Something restricted her ability to breathe.

"Pride," Pan said as he stepped slowly toward her, aware of what was happening as she started choking. "You, love, are far too prideful, and it's going to get you killed in the end. In fact, it already has."

Her vision went fuzzy, like the black and white static of a dead television screen. Through her numb senses, she registered falling to her knees and then landing on her stomach, getting a face full of dirt. A heavy weight pressed against the small of her back, and more pain erupted around her chest. Voices mumbled around her, but they were muted and distant and she couldn't distinguish any of the words.

And then, through a haze of gray in her eyes, Adi could see the sky again. Blood, heavy and warm, trickled into her mouth. She tried to swallow it back, but her throat was closing and she couldn't breathe; it trickled in a thin line from her lips.

She tried to speak but her voice sounded tinny and incoherent. Her eyelids fluttered.

Black was still crawling into her eyes. There was a rush of wind, a deep voice, a flash of blonde, a mesh of green, and Adi saw no more.


	8. The Queen's Curse

**1.08 | The Queen's Curse**

"I taste you on my lips  
and I can't get rid of you  
so I say damn your kiss  
and the awful things you do."  
Nicotine - Panic! at the Disco

* * *

IN THE TIME that Peter had known Adeline, she had done many irrational things. Not thinking was second nature to her.

So, really, he shouldn't have been as surprised as he was when she dragged that arrow down her arm, shouldn't have been surprised when she smiled like she had won, and he definitely shouldn't have been surprised when she collapsed.

Still, Peter still found a way to be shocked by her sheer audacity. He had to hand it to her; her blind pride was really something.

There was blood trickling from her lips, splattering on the stone floor of Dead Man's Peak. Adeline wasn't moving, meaning Peter only had minutes to revive her before the dreamshade fully consumed both her heart and brain and claimed them as its own.

Felix felt partially responsible for not warning her of the true danger of her actions. He wordlessly set Adeline down amidst a small puddle of her own blood while Peter magically created a canteen which he shoved under the water until it overflowed.

The ebony veins had trailed all the way up her neck, blending in with the dark curls splayed across the ground.

For a moment, he hesitated. Held the cure to imminent death not a foot above a dying girl, and hesitated.

Not because he didn't want her to live, but because she would forever be bound to the island.

"Peter." Felix sent him a pointed glare.

He was right; obtaining Adeline's permission would be impossible.

All that time of being called heartless by others, and now he thought of acting human?

Peter tipped the water into her mouth.

Time slid by painfully, silent save for the trickle of the waterfall, the rustle of leaves, and the impossibly loud pound of Peter's heart in his ears. Felix shifted uncomfortably, glancing over to Peter and then back to her.

Maybe they were too late. Maybe Peter waited too long, hesitated too much, and she died before the water hit her system.

Then Adeline took in a shuddering, choking breath. The inky veins disappeared from her skin, leaving it pale and untouched once more. Her eyelids fluttered open and she gasped loudly, attempting to sit up. She propped herself up on her elbows, then thought better of it as she turned to the side and retched a dark liquid onto the stone next to the blood.

"What happened?" she demanded, her voice rough. "Where am I?"

"Dead Man's Peak. Well, in your case, Dead Woman's Peak. This water -" Peter lifted the canteen for her to see "- saved your life. It took the poison from your system."

Adeline didn't look convinced. "Okay?" She ignored his outstretched hand and hauled herself to her feet, steadying herself on Felix. She was breathing heavily like she might vomit again. "What's the catch?"

For someone with horrid decision making skills, she was remarkably perceptive. Enough to understand that these things didn't happen without consequence, some kind of aftershock.

"All magic comes with a price."

"And mine is?" she asked warily.

"The water binds you to the island. So long as you wish to remain alive, you must stay. Here."

The words took a moment to sink in. Then Adeline's collected demeanor turned murderous. Faster than Peter could register, she lunged for him, torn between reaching for a weapon that wasn't there and clawing his neck with her fingernails first.

Unluckily for her, Felix anticipated her train of thought and got there first, hauling her back with an iron-like grip. She struggled against him, shouting curses at the both of them, still pale and shaking, but Felix easily had five inches and forty pounds on her.

"Use your words, Adeline," Peter taunted.

"I'm going to kill you," she spat in reply. "Let me go. Tell Felix to get the hell off of me."

"Afraid I can't." A tranquil, almost careless smile slipped onto Peter's face as he watched her fight. "Really, you should've thought about that before you poisoned yourself."

"There was plenty of time for you to stop me," Adeline hissed through gritted teeth.

"You didn't listen," Felix reminded her, pulling her from killing Peter yet again. "Didn't leave us much choice."

It seemed to click suddenly, and she stopped moving as her eyes widened in realization.

Carefully, Felix let go of her and allowed her to stand on her own, but eyed her warily in case she was overcome with the urge to murder Peter. Neither put it past her.

"You knew," she said softly, shaking her head. "You knew exactly what I was going to do, even before I actually did it."

Peter raised an eyebrow. "And even if I had tried to convince you, would you have listened? Or would you have called me a liar again and done it anyway? Because, either way, you end up dying and I'm the one who has to save you."

"You didn't _have_ to save me," Adeline retorted, shaking some of the hair that had fallen out of her ponytail from her eyes. Behind her, Felix twitched, but she glared at him and muttered, "Touch me and I'll push you off of this cliff."

"So, what, you'd rather have died?" Felix asked condescendingly. "That can be arranged, you know."

Her icy stare shifted between them with a fury they hadn't seen her hold until now, but she kept her mouth shut.

Instead, she turned to look at where she had been lying. Black and crimson stained the stone where she had lay, slick and shiny in the midday sun. Then she wiped her mouth with her sleeve to rid it of blood, but it had already stained.

She looked ill at the prospect of being mere moments away from death.

"Are you okay?" Felix questioned carefully.

A valid question. Adeline was staring at the newly formed scar on her right forearm, ashen against her already placid skin with what could only be described as muted horror. The question drew her from her reverie. "Yeah." Then her expression hardened. "I have an idea."

"Do you?" Peter taunted. "I remember what happened the last time you had one of those."

"Funny," Adeline deadpanned, rolling her eyes. "I think I could fight one of your shadow things again. You know, the ones that burned me and almost killed me earlier when you yelled at me for being weak."

Felix frowned at that. But before he could say anything, Peter did.

"Are you sure you're up to the task?" He raised an eyebrow." Didn't quite seem like it this morning."

Whatever anger she'd had towards him had simmered down for the time being, but he didn't doubt it would resurface later. Knowing her, at an extremely inopportune time.

"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. At least, that's what I've heard."

* * *

Dying really puts the world in perspective. Nothing quite like poisoning yourself to make you feel invincible.

Invincible. That just about described how Adi was feeling when she stood in before one of Pan's magically conjured shadows and bared her teeth as she charged at them, knives at the ready. One for each hand, a mimicry Max's ring daggers.

White-hot fire burned deep in her stomach. There was only one this time, and Adi was ready to kill it. She didn't even need her bow to do it.

The shadow didn't move until Adi went to attack it. She flung her second dagger at its head, but it ducked to avoid the blade. While it was preoccupied, she shoved the remaining knife into its middle and swiped its legs out from under it. The thing hit the ground hard.

It was strange to fight something that looked like smoke but probably weighed more than she did.

The phantom grabbed Adi by the arm, its touch singing her already burned skin, but she jabbed her knife into where she assumed a heart would be. The blade sunk deep, as if the swirls of darkness obscured human flesh.

When she pulled the dagger out, a coil of black smoke trailed after it, then dissipated in the light of day.

Adi got to her feet, breathing heavily through her teeth. The shadow disappeared in a cloud of green. Energy burned through her veins, sharp like poison and hot like lava.

"How'd that feel?" Pan asked.

"Good," Adi said, turning to face him. He was a lot closer than before. Only inches from her face. Too close. Close enough to make her nervous, which was what he wanted.

Felix wasn't here to pull her back from punching him in the face. But she wasn't sure she wanted to. "Really, really good."

* * *

On Neverland, time didn't exactly exist. At first, Adi had a vague idea of how many days and weeks she had been there, but as time moved, it began to feel like one big blur.

And when she asked Felix how they kept track of time, he laughed. _Time is an illusion_ , he had said. _People in other realms made it up to give their lives structure_.

Adi failed to see how they didn't need structure. Everyone did to a certain extent. However, night and day still existed, and that was good enough for her to vaguely perceive long she had been there.

Time - whatever strange version of it there was - passed. Adi became a regular part of the island, just like one of the boys. Only her magic set her apart from the others, from the people she had come to call her closest friends.

For a second, Adi could feel normal. But then Pan dragged her away for practice. Because she was different. Because she was powerful. Because he was training her for something bigger.

Whatever that thing was, Adi still had yet to find out. The fear she had first felt when he mentioned it had bubbled away in her internal fire; all she felt now was excitement. Power and control felt good in her hands. She fought the blank phantoms Pan created, and she won. With fire and arrows and knives, she won.

Until they weren't shadows anymore.

Adi furrowed her brow and lowered her bow, turning to stare incredulously at Pan. "Seriously?"

He feigned innocence. "What?"

"Don't play dumb; you know what." She motioned behind her.

The woman standing in the space where the black outline of a person usually would stared blankly ahead, unblinking and stoic. Blonde, thin, a few inches shorter than Adi, sword in hand. "Since when are you having me kill actual people?"

"Not actual people, just ones that look like them." Pan shrugged. "It's exactly like a shadow. No speaking, no emotions, only the will to survive. And I know you can fight it, because I've seen you do it before."

It wasn't difficult to figure out what he was doing. The shadows were stage one. Once she mastered those, she moved onto ones with human faces, and then onto actual humans. He was shaping her to ruthlessly kill people.

She shot him an icy glare but turned her attention to the woman. Empty green eyes, pale like moss and cold like snow, stared out at nothing.

Shaking her head as if it would dispel her doubts, Adi drew an arrow and carefully aimed it. The woman made no move to suggest she understood her impending demise. Adi released the string, the distinct whoosh of air following behind it, the tip pointed directly at the phantom's chest.

The phantom caught it. A look of sheer disgust that was reminiscent of Pan followed: upper lip curled, eyes flaring; and then she charged directly at Adi with her blade swinging wildly around her in a deadly silver arc.

Adi froze. None of the others had ever come at her like that - it was always her advance first. Regardless, she had to act fast before she got gutted by something that wasn't even truly there.

Visualizing dual knives in her hands like Max had been teaching her to use, Adi flipped them by the ring around her fingers and gritted her teeth, meeting the advancing woman's sword with her right dagger while she attempted to drive the left into her hip. No luck. The blonde ducked away and swung at Adi's head.

An involuntary yelp left her mouth as she crouched down and then sprung up. She prayed for the element of surprise but came up short. The phantom sliced the side of her neck - not deep, but enough for a spark of pain to flare anger.

That was all it took.

Adi teleported behind her. The woman looked wildly around, but by the time she had fully spun in a 180, Adi had already shoved both of her daggers into her back and pushed with all the force she could muster. Blood spurted when she yanked them out; blood that transformed into dust by the time it hit the ground.

There was no time for the phantom to fall. She - it - disappeared in a flash of emerald, leaving no trace that there ever was a battle save for Adi's own blood smeared across her skin.

Exhaling deeply, Adi stepped back shoved her daggers into her belt and looked to Pan.

He was smiling. "That is exactly the kind of vengeance you always need to have. Take control of that anger. Use it to your advantage - you could be _unstoppable_." As he spoke, Pan took carefully calculated steps toward her, a habit he couldn't seem to shake, one he particularly seemed to enjoy because Adi refused to give in and move back.

It was their competition. One game of many.

Adi leveled him with a cool stare. "Pan, I know what you're trying to do. It won't work."

"And what is it you believe I'm trying to do?" There it was again, that fake innocence, to make her out as the bad guy, to make her yell at him more, because he knew she would.

Yet another game.

"You're training me to want to kill - to _enjoy_ it. I'm never going to like doing this. I do it because I have to. It's a game. I know what your strategy is."

"Do you?" he said, tilting his head to the side with eyebrows raised. "Have you ever truly known what game I'm playing?"

"I know what you're trying to force me into, but I'm not going to let you," she replied evenly.

"Not going to let me?" he repeated, amused. A pause, then he threw his head back to let out a sharp bark of laughter. "Adeline, you don't need to _let_ me do anything. If you haven't noticed, I make the rules. Besides, you've already done what I need you to."

"You want me on your side," Adi suddenly realized. "That's what this is about."

"This was never entirely about you." Pan pointed directly at her. "There's a storm coming, something much bigger than you, and I need you to help take down the intensity of the hurricane."

She felt her chest constrict ever so slightly, though her voice was even. "So all of this...all of it was so I would be your weapon. You needed me here so I could fight this 'storm' with you. Everything, just for one person's loyalty. For my power. What I'm able to do."

"See, that's where you're wrong. I need you to -"

"I heard what you need me to do!" Adi suddenly yelled, glaring fiercely at him. "Just tell me. Tell me all of this - everything - was only so I would help you. Only for my abilities. Don't tell me what you _need_ , because I already know. Yes or no."

Pan caught his bottom lip between his teeth. "Yes."

Bitterly, she laughed. "But there's one thing you weren't counting on. I'm not malleable. You can't force me to be like you. Not really. Don't take it personally, but I'd rather die than be on your side."

"Technically, you already have." That mischievous glint returned to his emerald gaze, and he took another step toward her. "You, my dear Adeline, are in denial."

"No, Pan, I'm not." She moved closer. Her turn to be intimidating. "Because even after all these months of you teaching me how to fight and to kill, I'm not some object you can lay claim to, and you can't control me. I will always be able to think for myself."

"There you go with your _independence_ again." He feigned a sigh. "Ownership and control are different. Either way, I know something you don't."

"And what's that?" she challenged, taking another step.

"You love how power feels. You love being ruthless. And you love being part of a group, as much as you try to deny it. So I know you're lying just to spite me."

Adi had forced Pan to move backwards until he was mere inches from colliding with a tree, and still she refused to yield. "I'm not afraid of you," she hissed.

Pan leaned closer, so close she could smell the forest in his hair and feel the exhale of his breath against her face. "Prove it."

Hesitation. She stared at him for a moment, dumbstruck as she struggled for a snappy retort, but Pan shot into action. He reached forward in a flash, grasped her wrists in twin iron locks, and flipped their places so that the bark of the tree cut into the back of her already bleeding neck. Blue met green in a collision of fury, and then, before Adi could even comprehend what was happening, his lips were on hers.

A shockwave rolled through the clearing the moment it happened, and then Adi was stumbling to the side, away from him as best she could while something tore at her head like someone had taken a cheese grater to her brain.

Intense pain for at least thirty seconds. Memories in vivid color flooded her mind as she clutched her head – not in agony, but in shock.

 _Her, younger, on the deck of a ship, wind in her hair and dressed in sky blue; and then her again, this time with a bow in tattered black clothes; carving something out of pale wood; fighting alongside a man a few years older than her through rain that felt like knives; screaming at the top of her lungs with a body in her arms; a ship's sail on fire; arguing with an angry woman in mahogany; tracking someone through the woods; the clash of metal against metal; the dank chill of a dark chamber; swirling clouds of violet swallowing everything._

Memories not forgotten, but suspended. By a curse. The queen's curse.

Adi - no, _Fallon_ \- remembered. Everything.

Including what Pan had done all those years ago.

And Adi, who always slouched and leaned on one leg to make herself smaller; Adi, who avoided eye contact if at all possible; Adi, who had trembled with fear not two months ago in front of the boy king, suddenly drew herself to her full height with rigid posture, inches away from Pan's face. She was only about an inch shorter than him. Crimson still dripped down her neck; her cobalt eyes were bloodshot and cold.

"You," seemed to be all she could manage with the white hot claws of fury coursing through her body.

Pan arched an eyebrow. "Me? What, you think that kiss actually meant something?"

"No, I don't," Adi replied, deadly calm. "But you know what it triggered, and that's what means something."

He had to have done something to her, and kissed her as a distraction. It was the only reasonable explanation.

Either he had gotten stupid in the last minute, or he was pretending not to know. Whichever it was, he was increasingly infuriating her.

"What did it trigger, Adeline?"

A step closer. Narrowed eyes, clenched teeth. "My name is _Fallon_."

He appeared unimpressed. "And?" he asked, almost lazily.

" _And_ ," she hissed, "I know what you did." Adi tore her daggers from her sides and flipped them around her fingers, not taking her eyes off him for even a second. "You're the reason my brother is dead."

"I'm the reason a lot of people are dead." Pan shrugged.

The offhanded way he said it made her want to scream with rage until he understood the utter fury and pain coursing through her.

"I almost died the exact same way!" she shouted as she leveled one of the blades with his chin.

"So kill me," he said. No emotion. Not a threat. An invitation.

Killian had called the boy who killed Liam a demon. Had sworn vengeance on him. Had promised Fallon they would have his blood on their hands, a promise to which she had vehemently agreed.

But now that she was standing in front of him and remembered who he was and what he had done, she still couldn't. Not because she didn't want to, but because she wasn't the same person who had screamed as loud as she possibly could when she found Liam's still body. She wasn't the same person who stood by Killian's side when he declared war on the abstract Peter Pan.

Adi's grip wavered the longer she looked at Pan and his collected demeanor. She opened her mouth to say something else, but the words wouldn't come out right.

"I understand you're upset."

"Do you?" Adi's voice dripped with acid. "I'm not sure that's entirely true."

"But you haven't listened to what really happened," Pan said, ignoring her. "Liam died of pride. The same as you. I told them – both of your brothers – at the dreamshade plant was deadly, yet he poisoned himself anyway. And I told Killian that the water wouldn't work once he left the island, but they left anyway. It wasn't me who killed him. You knew Liam - you knew how prideful he was. Just like you. It's his own fault he died. Be angry with Killian instead of me."

"You're lying," she said through clenched teeth. "Killian wouldn't have done that."

Pan shifted, comfortable, as if she wasn't pointing a knife right at him. "But he did, Adeline. He might have altered the story to make him sound honorable, a hero. Put the blame on someone else. Jones needed a scapegoat, and he took the opportunity when he saw it. I may not be the most well-behaved person, but I always tell the truth. Trust me."

That gave her pause. Adi had to take a second to regain her composure so she wouldn't either scream again or burst into tears.

"I want to leave." Even as she said it, Adi realized how stupid it was.

Pan laughed. "There are less painful ways to die, if that's what you're getting at." He pushed her dagger away from him and shook his head. "Even if you could leave and live, I still wouldn't let you. You're too valuable."

"Right," she said bitterly. "Because you need my power. I almost forgot that's all I'm good for."

"Enough self-pity," he told her with a roll of his eyes. "We both know that isn't the only reason why. Besides, I'm not the one you need to be angry with, so stop taking it out on me. You're not fooling anyone."

Actually, Adi was trying to fool herself - it was easiest to name Pan the scapegoat. That, and the urge to hurl one of her knives at him was almost overwhelming. "Sorry, who else am I supposed to be pissed at?"

"Think about it, Adeline," Pan said lowly, circling around her as he spoke like an animal zeroing in on its prey. "Who didn't defend you when Liam said you couldn't come with them to Neverland? Who regretted that when they needed someone to convince his brother not to test the poison? Who wouldn't let you train until after Liam died? And, best of all, who left you to rot in the Queen's dungeons for all that time until the curse, and after, didn't bother trying to find you?"

Adi swallowed and shifted her weight; all the confidence she had gained seemed to shrink back inside her with the accusations - because, much to her dismay, Pan was absolutely right. And she really hoped that was the last time she would ever even think that.

"You know I'm right."

"Killian wasn't in Storybrooke. There's no way he could've found me there."

Pan snorted. "But he did leave you trapped in the queen's prison?"

"Yeah," Adi conceded, nodding. "He did. But I can't hold it against him. He was smart enough to know he would have died if he tried to break me out."

"That doesn't excuse it," he said matter-of-factly. "People that truly care about each other always find a way. Adeline, listen to me. He forgot about you the moment you left; he only saw you as dead weight."

It suddenly became difficult to inhale. There were too many things all at once weighing down on Adi - it felt like Pan had thrust the sky on her shoulders and told her to keep breathing anyway. Her throat went dry.

"He saw me as dead weight, you only see me as power. No difference, really," Adi said quietly.

Pan shook his head decisively. Maybe it was only her imagination, but his face had softened a fraction of an inch. "I actually care about you. That's the difference."


	9. A Double Identity

1.09 | A Double Identity

"And I'm just so stubborn  
and I'll never learn.  
And you're so concerned  
that I won't return."  
Burn - Versaemerge

* * *

 _AS FAR AS bad days go, Fallon was having a pretty terrible one._

 _It all started in the early afternoon, after she finished her spar with Smee - not so much for her benefit as for his - when the queen summoned her to her royal palace. Or wherever she lived. Not that Fallon cared enough to know what to call the queen's residence._

 _Fallon had been hoping to steer clear of the queen for the entirety of her life, but Regina herself had invited her. The queen had an evil streak ten acres wide. But she couldn't exactly avoid her when the woman sent a bunch of guards and a coach to take her._

 _They led her through numerous corridors that looked exactly the same: deep violet walls, torches burning every few feet or so, doors here and there that led off into identical hallways. Fallon had no idea how anyone navigated this labyrinth._

 _Not to mention how out of place she felt when she arrived in a room stranger than anything she'd ever seen: one of many toward the top floor of the dark palace, an airy place with elegant inky decorations and a multitude of mirrors._

 _Mirrors that reflected a very miffed Fallon in her torn dress and boots with sword at her side and bow over one shoulder and tangled braid over the other._

 _And then there was Regina, perfectly coiffed in deep purple and black silk and what vaguely resembled feathers, dark hair piled into an intricate up-do away from her bare shoulders._

 _Fallon didn't quite like the way she was looking at her, either: a dazzlingly white smile wide enough to make her go blind. It was unnerving._

 _The queen gave her a once over. "Fallon Jones. Pleasure."_

 _"What do you want?" she asked flatly. She saw no need for formalities - not when she was on high alert and twitching for her weapons the moment the queen locked eyes with her._

 _"Well, you're as charming as your brother," Regina shook her head, rolling her eyes, but a manic grin was tipping the corner of her mouth. "I have a proposition for you."_

 _"Sounds good. You're going to have to be a little more specific."_

 _"A task that only you can complete."_

 _"Depends what it is. I don't tend to do_ tasks _out of the goodness of my heart," Fallon replied. "I'm gonna need a little incentive."_

 _"Of course. But we'll discuss that afterwards," the queen said coldly. "I've heard of your proficiency with weapons, your...determination. You've got nerve. There's someone I want you to find. Someone I want you to kill. And from what I've heard, I have no doubt you'll be able to do it without a problem."_

 _Many before her had relayed story after story of the queen's murderous nature, of her short temper and impatience to get whatever it was she desired. But Fallon wasn't scared. She stared at her incredulously. "I'm a pirate, not an assassin."_

 _"You've killed people before, haven't you?" She raised her eyebrows. "This is just another to add to the list. Not difficult at all."_

 _"And if I say yes," she said slowly. "How do I even find this person? I'm no tracker. It'd take me forever to find them, if ever, and then find my way back here."_

 _"She hides in the forest, like a coward, running from me every time I even get close to finding her. That's where you come in. She won't know you - gain her trust, shoot her from a distance, I don't care. However you do it, as long as her body is at my feet when you return."_

 _"Her," Fallon repeated. It would be up to her to track down this person. She wished she had gotten Killian and the crew to fight the guards with her while she still had the chance. "Who is she, exactly?"_

 _Regina's smile went cold, her eyes shining cruelly. Even in daylight, she looked downright terrifying. "The girl who took everything from me. Her name is Snow White."_

 _"Snow White," she said aloud. The name was familiar, but not one she could match a face with. She must have been some kind of expert at avoiding Regina for the queen to have to call on a lowly pirate for assistance. "Interesting name." Fallon paused a moment to press her fingers against her bowstring which was settled across her chest for safekeeping. "Fine. But don't expect too much from me."_

 _"Of a pirate?" Regina tilted her head to the side, a coy grin playing at her lips. "Never."_

* * *

Adi wasn't having a good day either.

Maybe it was due to the expression of pure hatred she was sporting, but after she returned from having an entire life restored to her mind, no one seemed keen on talking to her.

Everyone seemed to notice, as well – which was fair, considering she wasn't particularly skilled at masking her emotions – and stayed out of her way when she returned to camp with her eyes screaming hatred.

Almost everyone stayed out of the way. Slightly looked like he wanted to go over to her, but the glare Adi shot him made him reconsider. She felt a little bad at the hurt that crossed his face, but he was a sweet kid, and she didn't want him to hate her if she were to yell at him - which was likely

The one who dared to stand from where he was tending to the fire (why they needed one in midday when it was well over eighty degrees was beyond her) and sit wordlessly beside her was Felix.

Adi barely spared him a glance, let alone a greeting, and didn't bother to tear her eyes away from the arrow she was crafting to make herself look busy. "What?"

"I didn't say anything."

So that was his angle: pretend he didn't care, pretend he wasn't going to press her for information, wait until she brought it up herself. A good plan, but she wasn't going to. Honestly, she was more surprised he hadn't asked Pan.

There was silence for a minute or so, mildly uncomfortable and tense. Felix blatantly ignored Adi and went about doodling in the dirt with one of his knives like he hadn't come over in the first place.

Adi finished the arrow with a wave of violet magic that coated it in a shiny chestnut finish. Absently, she scrawled in the earth with it like Felix.

First her name in messy cursive, then the symbol for Scorpio, – an M with an arrow at the end – and then the initials FMJ before she could even stop to think about it. They came naturally as her mind began to wander.

Cursing under her breath, Adi scribbled them out, well aware of Felix's pervasive stare on her shoulders. She really didn't want to have to deal with explaining to him what had happened before she was even entirely sure what had.

"I know why you hold your bow wrong now," Felix stated in a monotone.

 _Oh, here we – wait. What?_

"Why?" she said with suspicion.

"You're left-handed," he answered, then went on without so much as a pause, "What's FMJ?"

"Weighted question."

"They're just letters."

That was a nice way to think about it. Her past was a story, typewritten in her head and formatted like a hardcover book. The whole thing was made up of mere letters – harmless. A story.

It was that thought that caused her to spill. All of it: her dual identity, life in Storybrooke, her brothers' downfalls, her own. Like blood from a wound desperately in need of stitches.

"And I can't stay here," Adi finished, her gaze fixed on the dirt at her feet. "I cannot stay here with the knowledge of what he's done, even if he's telling the truth."

Felix, who had remained silent and stoic for the entirety of her story, still had nothing to say. He stared impassively back at her, still distractedly making swirling designs in the dirt by his feet. "Whatever you need to do, do it. Even if it makes you look like the enemy."

 _What the hell does that mean?_

With that, he left her alone as she attempted to figure out if he was simply avoiding giving her an answer or if there was some profound advice hidden deep within his words.

As night fell, realizations hit her like a gentle breeze: slowly, not all at once. But Adi sort of figured out that only she could know what to do, and it didn't matter what anyone else thought – it was her problem, not theirs.

Her problem only. When this occurred to her, she felt guilty for telling Felix everything; it would only involve him in issues unrelated to him. She pushed the idea away.

Instead, she brought others forward, the ones that needed solving.

Who to trust: Pan or Killian? The one who had given her a home or the one who had left her to die alone in the queen's dungeon? The one who manipulated her or the one who had helped her become the person she was today?

The obvious answer would be family. But it was hard to trust the brother who had abandoned and hurt her, and chose vengeance over her. Milah was always more important.

Fallon Jones had a motto that she could handle herself; in the one time she couldn't, she couldn't even get her own brother to help her out.

Perhaps he took her words too as a promise that he didn't have to look after his younger sister, or maybe he just didn't care.

That was what made Adi nervous. That after the sixteen years she spent by his side, Killian was so quick to leave her, to forget about her once she was gone - out of sight, out of mind. Her disappearance gave him an excuse to get his revenge on the Crocodile.

And then there was Pan. Who - apparently - didn't lie (which could also be a lie). Adi was beginning to get used to life on Neverland. It felt right, even normal. So much that when Pan called them her brothers, she didn't protest. Because he was right.

Would it be so far-fetched for her to call them her brothers too?

Adi's head hurt. She closed her eyes and exhaled slowly, because for what felt like the first time in a very long time, she had no idea what to do.

* * *

 _Snow White was a lot harder to find than Fallon had imagined. The woods were big, yes, but not_ that _big. And she was making quite a racket._

 _Breathing heavily, choking back fake sobs, her dirty dress catching on every single branch, stick, and leaf she passed over, arrows clattering noisily in their quiver. Fallon paused, leaning against a tree, to push some of the fallen pieces of her hair back from her eyes. Her braid had been half undone and riddled with a nice assortment of dirt and leaves._

 _To say the least, she looked atrocious._

 _Regina had told her that Snow White would be tempted to help someone desperate and helpless-looking - it was in her nature._

 _Fallon's natural response upon exiting the castle was to disguise herself, despite the fact that the word_ helpless _was the last thing she'd like to use to describe herself._

 _She thought it would work quickly. But the more she ran, crying and panting, through the forest, the less she believed in her plan._

 _There was also the truth of how vulnerable she felt with only one weapon at her disposal: her bow. How easy it would be for her to be disarmed, or ambushed, and she would have no other defense but her words._

 _Fallon started at the sound of a branch snapping. Out of habit, she strung an arrow and aimed it in the direction of the noise, steady and calm despite the tears on her cheeks._

 _"Are you alright?"_

 _The voice came from directly behind her, and she spun around, cursing herself for not realizing. Her arrow's tip was mere feet away from a pale, dark-haired woman in white and brown, dirty and equipped with a bow not unlike Fallon's._

 _Hesitantly, she lowered the bow. "Define alright."_

 _The woman's lips twitched into a smile. "You look like you're running from something."_

 _"Someone," she corrected with a shrug. "I owe her a favor and she won't leave me alone until I get it finished."_

 _She looked like she wanted to ask her what that favor was, but Fallon was glad she didn't - she had no answer to give. Instead, she bit her lip and asked, "What's your name?"_

 _"What's yours?"_

 _A pause. Her eyes raked over the teenager again and she seemed to come to some sort of consensus. "Snow White."_

I knew it.

 _"Nice to meet you. I'm...Adeline." Fallon had heard the name somewhere in her travels that were beginning to all blur together as one, and it was the first that came to mind. It was a nice name with a bit of a musical ring to it._

 _"Hmm," Snow White nodded. "Mind if I call you Adi?"_

 _It was her turn to smile, sweet and friendly like the harmless child she was pretending to be. "Mind if I call you Snow? Or do you prefer Miss White?"_

 _Easy. Hero types were too easy_.

* * *

After what felt like hours of crafting arrows to give herself some time to think, Adi was sick of thinking. Her head hurt, her hands hurt, and her _brain_ hurt - if that was even possible.

The boys had begun their bi-nightly ritual of dancing wildly around the fire, but Pan's alluring melody was only contributing to the pounding ache in her temples instead of calling to her like it used to. Rather than shooting chills down her spine, the haunting melody grated against her skin.

Adi tucked her new arrows into her quiver and sighed, leaning back against the log behind her. At some point in her work, she had migrated to the floor to give her aching back some rest. The rough bark cut into her as she stretched.

Absently, she dug her hands into the pockets of the black cloak she wore, the one that matched the boys'. The right one was empty except for some dirt and lint, but in the left, something crinkled against her fingertips. She pulled the thing out, stunned to discover a faded piece of parchment: the map. The one Slightly gave her on her first day on Neverland. It was a miracle she still had it.

Unfurling it, Adi studied the paper. Nothing had changed (not that she expected it to), not even the blacked out western half of the island. She ran her fingers over the ink and blew a sharp breath out of her mouth as she recognized with a start: _the western half._

It wasn't Pan's territory. An uncharted, no-man's-land that belonged to no one, not even Pan.

She stood with renewed vigor, crumpling the map in her grasp, and dodged the jumping boys to reach Pan on the outskirts of the circle with his pipe beneath his lips. When he caught sight of Adi on her way over, his eyebrows shot up and he put the flute down.

"You said I have to stay on the island because of the water," Adi said, breathless, as she turned the paper around for him to see. "And I do. But not with you."

It took a moment for her proposition to sink in. And then Pan laughed. Tilted his head back to let out a rough bark of laughter that cut into the warm night like a chainsaw. "Adeline, we don't go there for a reason. You wouldn't last a day."

"I've survived on my own long enough. I could do it, and I sure as hell don't need your permission."

The boys seemed to abruptly notice the lack of music and stilled around the fire, turning to where he and Adi stood. An audience.

Pan laughed again. "Survived on your own, have you?" he taunted. "If I recall correctly, you need me. You need _us_. And before us, you needed your brothers, and before that, you needed your parents. You've always needed someone, but you're too proud to admit it."

Adi shot him a glare so cold it might have frozen him. There was a retort on her lips, but Pan continued without waiting for it. He knew it was coming, too, the bastard.

"You couldn't even kill Snow White on your own without running like a coward. And you're running now. What, you learn a little about your past and now you're scared of yourself and everyone around you? Grow up, Adeline."

"Do you even hear yourself? When you talk, are you listening to the crap you're spewing?" Adi waved her hands around, wide-eyed and pink in the cheeks. "You murdered my brother! I can't even begin to count the times you've hurt me! So excuse me if I'm deciding I don't need you in my life. Maybe I can't handle myself, but I am intelligent enough to make my own decisions."

"You can leave if you'd really like," Pan said, unusually composed. "But when you come back, at least admit that I was right."

"If I leave, there's no way in hell I'd ever come back," Adi hissed, leaning closer.

A smirk played at his lips. "Somehow, I don't think you're entirely correct."

If it was the last thing she did, she would prove him wrong.

* * *

 _Fallon had killed a lot of people - the blood staining the tips of her arrows and knives and hands could vouch for that. Ruthlessly, without regret, without any second thoughts, she could drive her blade into someone's neck and stand above them while they bled out, and walk away when their last breath left their lips. No problem._

 _There were reasons why she felt little guilt about those people._

 _But murdering a compassionate thief who offered to share everything she had with a helpless teenager she barely knew? That was a bit of a stretch. Despite what Snow White had done to the queen, Fallon couldn't see the terrible person she had made the woman out to be._

 _She had shown the thirsty, hungry, exhausted, terrified girl on the run in the woods the utmost kindness, even when she had no reason to so much as trust her. But she did anyway, and without any visible regrets or hesitation. Being heroic was simply trait that came as easily to her as having brown hair._

 _And there was no chance that Fallon was going to wash that kind blood off of_ her _dagger - not if she had a say in it._

 _Snow fell asleep rather quickly for someone who was supposed to be in hiding, who was supposed to be on high alert at all times in case of danger. Perhaps she was so trusting that it made her naive and ignorant. Or perhaps, she was faking so that she could kill Fallon when she let down her guard._

 _Hopefully not._

 _In the dim light, Snow White's dirty sections of snow white clothes glimmered beneath the moon, casting an almost ethereal glow over her pale face. She looked too perfect, like a porcelain doll._

 _Fallon sighed and touched one of the arrows in her quiver that she could use in place of a knife if she held it like one._

 _But the longer she looked at Snow White, the more her resolve strengthened. She would not kill this woman. She also couldn't tell her the truth; any mention of Regina's name would dissolve all trust Snow had given her earlier._

 _Slowly, so as not to make noise, Fallon rose and took careful steps toward the nearest path. Snow had led her down it not three hours ago, looking over her shoulder periodically as they went._

 _Paranoia tugged at Fallon's shoulder now, though she could barely make out anything through the darkness. A portion of her felt like Snow was trying to follow her. Then again, it wasn't like Fallon had really done anything except for drink some of her water and give her a false name._

 _Something behind her crackled. She whipped around, tugging an arrow from her quiver and notching it in one quick movement, but there was nothing to shoot. Sighing, she relaxed and lowered the bow, turning back around to keep moving away from Snow and away from the palace._

 _The sigh caught in her throat when she ran directly into something. Slowly, she looked up._

 _There was a person barricading her way, clothed in dense armor and holding a sword a little over the length of her arm directly at her neck. They were too close to shoot, so Fallon tried to run the other way, but there was another in the way. And another, another, another, until she was surrounded by armored guards._

 _Fallon recognized them as the same who had come to the ship to escort to the palace._

 _The queen had sent guards after her._

 _Five of them, one of her. Five swords, one bow that she was too close to use and magic that she had no idea how to use._

 _Fallon attacked anyway. She went for the one closest to her, using the body of her bow to smack his sword out of his hands and then kicking - with all the force she could muster - him in the stomach so he went down, hard, blade and armor reverberating in the still night as he hit the ground._

 _Night pressed against her, hindering her ability to see. Fallon squinted in the darkness, but even that took too much time. A heavy, blunt metal object hit her over the head. Her grip on her bow loosened. It connected with her skull again, sending her reeling back into one of the knights._

 _The stars in the sky mingled with the ones in her vision; Fallon lost all ability to form coherent, non-slurring speech. Otherwise, she would've been cursing out the soldier who threw her over his shoulder like a freaking sack of potatoes._

 _And she would have struggled, but her head really, really hurt_.

* * *

"You know what?" Adi said, shaking her head. "I'm done arguing with you, Pan."

He cocked an eyebrow. "So you're staying? This discussion was for nothing?"

The fine line between discussion and argument had been shattered the moment Adi set foot on the island, and he knew it.

"It wasn't for nothing. I'm going with or without your approval." She took a step back, magically summoning her bow to her hand - the only thing she needed to take with her. "Trust me, I'll be able to survive. I've done it before, haven't I?

Pan spread his arms wide, grinning widely. "Look where it got you."

Adi fixed him with an even stare. "I know you don't think I'm capable, but I have a ton of arrows, some deadly magic, and one hell of a left hook, so I'd say I'm in pretty good shape." Another smirk, another step away from him.

"Overconfidence, Adeline," he warned, grasping for something to break her self-assuredness.

Partly because Pan was aggravating, partly because she knew exactly what to say and didn't want to let him stop her, Adi continued like she didn't hear him. "And when that storm you've been waiting for all this time finally begins, when that thing you've been training me for happens, don't come to me for help. I will not be on your side."

This seemed to amuse him. "Is that a threat?"

"No," she replied steadily. "It's a promise."

Adi wasn't sure what she had expected: some kind of angry retort, him appearing in front of her and forcing her into another training session, protesting, another word to stop her. There was none. Only silence and the faint crackle of the blazing fire that lit the dark compound, and the steady whisper of the breeze in the trees above them.

Even in the darkness, Pan's jade eyes still had that malicious sheen to them as he stared down at Adi with his teeth bared. "Do as you wish, but remember this when you come back. And you _will_ come back. That's a promise."

Somehow, him not yelling made the impact of his words hit her like a brick to the stomach. It would've been easier to leave if he had been the one shouting while she replied coolly; now, they had reached an impasse neither was willing to break.

With her eyes still locked on his, forest on ocean, Adi gave him one last glare and turned around.

Like when she had willingly injected herself with poison all those weeks ago, there were no attempts to stop her. Their loyalty to Pan and his overarching schemes seemed to overshadow whatever loyalty they had to her.

None of her _brothers_ spoke.

She barely looked at them, because in the end, they would be the ones to make her stay, and she wasn't sure she could refuse the people she had grown closest to. Even though she loved them like her own siblings, she placed herself over them. Selfish, yes, but she always put herself first.

As Adi reached the perimeter of camp, right before the moment she would disappear into the dim light of the woods, she spun around and mock saluted Pan with an arrogant grin. His face was expressionless until she turned her back on him and faded into the jungle.

It was pitch black. The air suddenly seemed colder – the further she walked, the more the firelight vanished from behind her; a chill crawled its way down her neck. Through the branches woven to blot out the sky above, Adi could vaguely make out the full moon, shielded behind a thin sheen of fog. The stars weakly twinkled beside it.

She swallowed thickly and turned her eyes back to the ground, feeling like it would swallow her and any memory of her, ridding her of existence.

Her eyes met the moon's. Deep breath. No going back now. She forced herself to keep moving west through the dark.

This hell was her home.

* * *

 _Dazed. That's all Fallon could feel while she stared Regina directly in the eyes. The inside of her skull felt like it had suffered some severe, unfixable damage. The wall behind her was swimming in endless swirls and kaleidoscopes of grey, which probably was not a good sign._

 _"I give you one, simple task," the queen began, pacing the room and looking dangerously like she was considering setting Fallon on fire. "And you actually do it! You find the person I'm looking for, earn her trust - not like it's hard - and even become friends with her. On a first name basis. But you run. Like a coward, you_ run _."_

 _Fallon gave her a halfhearted shrug. "I may be a pirate, but I don't kill without reason."_

 _"It's going to cost you, Fallon Jones."_

 _"I don't have any money," she said with a wry smile, but the queen looked less than amused._

 _Regina motioned one of her guards forward. He took Fallon by the arm and began to lead her out of the room; she tried to turn around to spit one last spiteful thing back at the queen, but she was following them._

 _Down the hallway, down the stairs, left through a corridor, right, door, stairs, stairs, stairs. Everything glimmered in tinted torchlight, either black or violet to match the queen's soul and wardrobe, respectively._

 _The last door that opened upon their approach was made of heavy, chestnut wood that slid with a smooth hiss of air._

 _Inside, Fallon passed what felt like hundreds of celled rooms before her foggy brain put the pieces together, right in front of the last empty and dark one._

 _The palace dungeon. Snow White might have had a high reward on her head, but a thief's life was not worth this._

 _The guard threw Fallon into the cage with such force that her head hit the stone floor with a sickening crack before she could think to catch herself. She couldn't find it in her to get back up._

 _Above, the jagged ceiling swum in a blur of grey and black and every bleak color she could even begin to think of._

 _"You're weak, Fallon Jones," Regina spat as the guard locked the cell. "And you'll be in here forever."_

 _Fallon lifted her head to grin at her almost lazily. The dark snake of hopelessness was beginning to twist her insides, poisoning her mind and hindering her judgement. Some quite alarming black spots were marring her vision. "Is that a threat?"_

 _"No," the queen hissed lowly, her eyes narrowed like they were locked on a target. "It's a promise."_

* * *

 **END OF PART ONE.**

* * *

 **so I'm pretty sure (correct me if I'm wrong) Regina ruled after Killian was already in Neverland, so this couldn't logically have happened. But considering the complexity of the show compared to my laziness, I've decided it isn't super important to my story that the timeline be intact. Besides, its fanfiction so I'm just gonna go for it :)**


	10. Calling Hell Home

**2.10 | Calling Hell Home**

"I don't know where you're going,  
but do you got room for one more troubled soul?  
I don't know where I'm going,  
but I don't think I'm coming home."  
Alone Together - Fall Out Boy

* * *

THE BOUNDARY BETWEEN the east and west segments of Neverland wasn't anything special - in fact, if it weren't dark and if Adi hadn't been looking at the ground, she would have walked right through it.

Spanning what looked like infinitely from both sides, glimmering, transparent, hovering half a foot off the ground, was an electric blue line - in both senses of the word. She got the sense if she bent down and put her ear right next to it, it would emit a tinny, high-pitched tune, like electricity.

Without any air of ceremony or importance, Adi stepped over it.

She wasn't sure if it was good or bad, but absolutely nothing happened. No strong gust of wind or voices yelling or chill settling down her back. Just her on one side and everything she had come to call home on the other. Something heavy dropped in her stomach, but she turned around.

It was behind her now, physically and metaphorically.

The jungle around Adi looked almost exactly the same as before. Still, she felt different. Empty, like the smallest wind would knock her over. It didn't help that the darkness barred her complete use of vision; her only source of light was the hazy moon above.

Then it occurred to her that she didn't have to move alone in darkness. Adi conjured a pod of flames in her free hand and held it out in front of her, careful to avoid any stray branches and leaves. Although she wasn't in the best of moods, she didn't care to deal with a forest fire any time soon.

A humid breeze washed over her. Considering how used she was to the island's climate, it struck her as odd that it sent her senses on high alert – until she realized it wasn't the wind that was setting her on edge: it was the slow crackle of sticks emanating from her right.

The fire extinguished as she went for the dagger in her waistband and held it close to her with baited breath. Perhaps it was only one of the boys, upset she hadn't said goodbye. Perhaps it was something else - something far worse - that was the reason why Pan and the boys kept east.

A moment of utter silence. Adi swallowed, sure the noise carried so far anyone in a mile radius could hear it. And then a figure came into view at the same time a surprised, definitely female, accented voice asked, "You're a girl?"

Adi dropped her knife to her side and immediately scolded herself after. Femininity didn't equal safety, especially not here. "Excellent observation."

Even in the dim light, the woman had distinguishable features: decidedly feminine, blonde hair piled atop her head, willowy figure, upturned nose, clothed in a tattered green dress and dark leggings. Mid-twenties, maybe; in Neverland terms, old. She walked with poised grace, as if the ground was fragile glass. In her shaking hand was a short silver dagger.

"Who are you?" Unlike Adi, she didn't seem to think femininity equaled security, because she pointed the wavering blade right at Adi's stomach with renewed determination. "What are you doing here?"

Holding up her hands to reveal her empty left and arrow-free bow in her right, Adi said, "My name's Adi. Well, Fallon, depending on who you ask."

The woman blinked. Her eyes were pale green, a few shades lighter than Pan's. "Fallon? As in Jones?"

Adi studied her warily. Name recognition was either really good or really bad, and she didn't have enough time to decide which. "Depends who's asking."

Seeming to realize she was holding her at knife point, the woman lowered the dagger. "My name's Tinkerbell. I knew your brother, Killian, when he lived here."

"He _lived_ here?"

"For a time, yes," Tinkerbell said carefully. "He said you were missing, and he was trying to buy time to find you. Something about revenge on an alligator?"

"Crocodile," Adi spat as she shook her head. "Sounds just like him."

"He told me a lot about you, but that doesn't explain why you're here now with a different name."

She paused. There was no reason why she shouldn't trust Tinkerbell, but there wasn't any reason why she should. It was a fifty-fifty shot, and Adi hadn't been having the best luck lately.

Tinkerbell noticed her hesitation. "I get it. You don't trust me yet. But could you at least tell me if you know who else is on this island? Do you know what exactly you're getting yourself into?"

"Believe me," Adi shook her head, a faint, hopeless smile on her lips. "I've already found out. I think Pan might be the worst person I've ever met."

She half expected the boy to pull a Voldemort and taboo his name, but when he didn't appear at her voice, she figured she was safe.

"Yet you're still saying his name with a touch of reverence," the blonde pointed out warily.

"No, I'm not!" she said indignantly, but stopped at the look Tinkerbell shot her. "Well, he did teach me how to use my magic. And how to fight. As irritating as he is, I owe a lot to him."

Tinkerbell pursed her lips as she looked over the teenager once more. "I think I can help you. Follow me. If you trust me enough." She started into the woods, not looking back over her shoulder.

Adi had half a mind to let her go. But as she began to disappear between the darkness, she made a split-second decision to follow.

Cloaked in shadow, they walked in silence. Quiet hung above them, shattered only by a strange, faint ringing noise that sounded a lot like the bells from _Polar Express_. Adi looked around for the source, puzzled until her eyes landed on Tinkerbell. Her dangly, bell-shaped earrings swung with each step she took - how ironic. Tink had bells.

Finally, Tinkerbell stopped short in front of a wooden structure built up in a small clearing where some of the trees gave way to the sky above and illuminated the ground at their feet.

The structure was surprisingly similar to Pan's tree houses, only Tink's was made of lighter wood, more airy and open. There was door, just a cutout to enter in through the ladder.

Adi moved through the entrance to survey the inside: no personal decorations, no identifiers. A low bed in the corner and a table in the other, which was scattered with knives and books alike.

"How long have you been here?"

"Time is different. I'm not really sure, but it's been quite a while." Tinkerbell shrugged, taking a seat at the table and motioning for Adi to join her. "Once I wasn't a fairy anymore, I had to come somewhere with enough magic to make it feel like I still was. Even this magic is running out, too."

Adi blinked. "You're not a fairy? But in all the stories..."

"I'm a tiny pixie who can't talk? That's all wrong. I'm a lot louder and more pessimistic than that thing. Besides, even when I was a fairy, I was nothing like that stupid cartoon."

"Pan isn't either." Adi paused to trace her fingers along the warbled wood of the table, picturing the fun-loving kid in green tights and a hat. Part of her imagined Pan in said green tights and hat. It was a mistake. "What do you mean, the magic's running out?"

Tink tilted her head to the side slightly, resting her chin on her palm and her elbow on the table. "Everything ends in time. Have you ever seen Pan fly?" When Adi shook her head, she continued, "No. That's because the magic that grows the pixie dust to make you fly doesn't work anymore. Slowly and steadily, the magic is...dying. And it's going to take the island with it. That's what I've been told, at least."

"Is there any way to stop it?"

"There is, but I don't know what yet. Pan won't tell me until it gets closer."

Adi chewed on her bottom lip. "He was training me for something. Wouldn't tell me what, but it was something important - something big. Too bad I'm not around to find out."

The ex-fairy leaned closer to the archer with an odd expression on her face: something caught between confusion and incredulity. "Adi, Pan's still going to need you regardless of if you're willing or not. Once he decides he needs you, he will not give up."

"I know," Adi said matter-of-factly as she abruptly stood and picked up her bow from where she had leaned it against the table leg. "But neither will I. Pan can call me his all he wants, but it doesn't mean anything. I belong to myself."

It hurt to think that Pan saw her mainly as an object, a tool, a weapon. His weapon that he had slowly been fine tuning to work perfectly for his grip. What he hadn't counted on was said weapon being able to think for herself and choosing to run away. What was even more shocking was that he had let her.

"Of course you belong to yourself. People can't own other people."

 _Yes. They can. He convinced himself that he owned me, even when I told him again and again that I didn't, so I had to leave. I had to freaking leave before he completely took over and I hate to say it but he terrifies me now that I actually think about it. Peter Pan scares me. There, I said it_.

Tink opened her mouth to say something else, but Adi didn't let her start.

"Look, Tinkerbell, I appreciate you trusting me enough to tell me all this, and I appreciate you bringing me here, but there's something I need to do."

The calm tone she said it with surprised even her, because her heart was beating faster than she had ever felt it before.

Fully aware of Tinkerbell's startled gaze on her back, Adi chose to ignore it as she climbed down the ladder and half-sprinted through the jungle. Her breath came out in short, heavy pants while stray branches cut across her skin, leaving jagged scratches across her cheeks and bare arms.

Adi stumbled through the edge of the trees and tripped until her feet met sand, cold in the absence of the sun and stretching forever in both directions. Above the trees to her right, marring the now perfectly clear midnight sky, was a thick column of smoke that reached all the way up to the stars.

Tilting her head back, she desperately searched for a constellation she recognized. She came up empty-handed. Not even the stars were her friend here. All she had was a hopeless ex-fairy and the heaviness in the pit of her stomach.

For a reason she had yet to understand, her insides ached the longer she looked up at the smoke and the unfamiliar heavens. Her throat felt thick; she was glad no one was here to talk to her, because she was afraid her voice might break.

This wasn't healthy. These people shouldn't be making her feel this upset, especially when the ringleader, the one who called every single shot, was the reason she had left in the first place.

But he was also the reason she had come, too. Peter Pan was a paradox, a terrifyingly enticing oxymoron that begged her to step closer and go running in the other direction at the same time.

He was a slippery slope - once she had taken the first step, she had gone tumbling. And it was one hell of a long way down.

She needed him gone.

Adi waved her hand and conjured a pile of kindling and sticks in front of her on the sand and set it alight in another motion. The heat warmed her icy skin to an uncomfortable degree but she didn't move back. Just watched as the flames devoured the wood.

Without taking a pause to second guess herself, Adi dropped her bow into the fire. It licked hungrily at the polished weapon and charred the beautiful chestnut a deep charcoal. Her quiver and carefully crafted arrows went next. Adi watched the blaze claim them as its own.

Vaguely, she wondered why she was crying.

Adi ripped the short cloak-like shirt the boys all wore off next and threw it in the fire, watching in only her bra and Converse and pants as her possessions turned to ash.

She took a deep, rattling breath and closed her eyes so she could wipe the tears from under them. Her face felt raw and hot even in the night's chill.

Then Adi conjured a new set of clothes on her body: gray leggings, a loose blue top covered by a leather jacket. She left her shoes on - the only thing she still had from Storybrooke.

The knife in her belt had switched to her pocket; she took it out and studied it. With her other hand, she yanked the tie from her hair so it tumbled around her shoulders, and then gripped a chunk of it with determination.

A shaking inhale, a steady exhale, the raise of the knife toward her face; Adi sliced her long hair to her shoulders, all the way around, blindly, so she was positive it looked messy and uneven. She couldn't bring herself to care, not when her shoulders suddenly felt a thousand times lighter and she felt like she could breathe again.

The breeze helped the flames sputter out until even the glowing embers went out and she was left standing beneath an unfamiliar sky in front of a circle of the cinders of who she used to be.

Not Fallon Jones. Not Adeline. Just Adi.

 _Who knows,_ Adi thought as she turned to study the ebony blanket of sea the spanned out forever in every direction, _how to survive. How to belong in a place that clearly doesn't want her._

The stars glittered in warbled pinpricks against the endless mass of ocean before her. The constellations from home, the only things that belonged to her, were no longer hers to claim.

That was okay. She could make new ones. At least, that's what she told herself as she began the trip back to Tink's place. Already, she was beginning to remember the western forest.

In psychology class, Adi learned something called the adaptation level phenomenon: the idea that no matter what, people adjust and - whatever the circumstances - return to their baseline level of happiness.

So by that theory, the best things become normal, the worst become regular, and even hell becomes home.

* * *

"What happened to you?"

That was the first thing Tink said when Adi got back, and the reason she finally decided to trust the ex-fairy.

Now that she felt like the weight of a thousand bricks had been burned alongside her bow, she was able to appreciate the blunt concern the woman had for her, despite them meeting less than two hours ago. Any of the boys would either have left her alone or made her feel like she was drowning.

Tinkerbell, however, barely glanced up from her place at the table at the sound of Adi's shoes against her floor; nor did she even look at the teenager until she slid into the char opposite her.

"I needed a change," she replied, stoic. The panic from earlier had disappeared and was slowly being replaced by a gnawing bitterness at the edge of her spinal cord. Not toward her companion, but the situation in general. She could push it away for the time being.

There was a pause in which Tink surveyed her once more, nodding. "Yeah. It suits you."

Adi ran a hand through the front of her newly cropped hair, watching as Tinkerbell tinkered with a few spare bits and pieces of what looked like a rusty knife and a few pieces of old scrap metal. Her hands, moving with surprising agility, suddenly paused as the fairy looked up with an eyebrow raised.

"Something you need? You're making me nervous."

"I'm trying to figure out how to tell you everything that's happened to me without taking an entire day to do it," she said. "I mean, from what I can tell, it's only been about three months, but a lot of crap has happened."

Tink set down her things and folded her hands on the table. "How about this: I'll go first."

"Sounds like a deal."

It seemed that between Adi nearly breaking down in front of Tink and her returning with a stoically calm demeanor, the two had come to a consensus to trust each other. However unspoken it was, it was enough for Adi to come back and start talking.

"I used to live in the Enchanted Forest, working under the Blue Fairy with a bunch of others just like me. Wings, colorful dresses, nicely pinned hair, all of it. Everyone was the perfect image of what a fairy should be - except for me. I wanted to actually help people instead of simply doing what I was told and nothing else. So I would sneak out. One night, I came across a woman seconds away from dying, and I saved her life. Not my orders, but I had helped someone. Her name was Regina."

"Regina?" Adi interrupted, choking on her own spit in an extremely unladylike manner. "As in, Queen Regina?"

"The same." Tink nodded gravely before continuing. "Regina wasn't at a very good point in her life, so I offered to help her find her true love, which would grant her happiness. I tried to get her the dust, but Blue said no and told me to stay with her while I learned how to behave properly. It didn't really work, because I snuck out again and stole some dust."

"What exactly does the dust do?"

"When you spread it over a certain area, it becomes like a trail for you to follow that leads you to a single person. No one else can see it but the one who laid the dust. Ours led Regina to a tavern, where she found a man with a tattoo of a lion. I left. And when I visited her later that night, I found out she had been too scared to go in to meet him. I had stolen that pixie dust for nothing, and when I left, Blue found me. She started yelling at me for being disobedient - she took away my wings for trying to be a good fairy. At least now I can try to be a good person."

Adi struggled to find something to say, but came up empty. The words stuck in the back of her throat like smoke.

Tinkerbell seemed unaffected by this. If anything, her voice had only gotten flatter during the course of her story. "Your turn."

"Right, yeah. Did Killian tell you what happened to me before I was taken? Or should I start with Neverland?"

"All he said was that the Queen took you and he never saw you again."

"The Queen recruited me to kill Snow White. When I couldn't do it, she imprisoned me. I was there until she cast a curse that wiped all of our memories and sent us to the Land without Magic under the false idea that we had been living in a place called Storybrooke our whole lives. That's where my name turned from Fallon to Adi. On my seventeenth birthday, I found a coin that brought me here..."

Telling Tink everything that had happened to her wasn't as difficult as she had first thought. As the words twisted and weaved around them, Adi realized how different she now was from the person she had been in Storybrooke.

When Adi concluded with her walking away from everythinh she had come to know, she let out a deep sigh and leaned back in her chair. She felt lighter than before, but it had transcended to an almost empty feeling in her stomach. Light was good. Empty, however, was not.

"You're strong," Tink observed after a few moments of silence.

Adi shook her head. "I'm not. I know how to make it look like I am - that's the difference."

"No," the blonde argued. "You might not realize it, but you are. Not many people can get back up after being knocked down so many times, and even less could walk away the way you did. That's why I like you." There was no time for Adi to argue, because she kept speaking while she fished around in a bag by her feet. "Here. This is for you." Tink slid a crumpled piece of paper across the table.

Raising an eyebrow, Adi unfurled it. It was a near exact replica of the map Slightly had given her, only with the eastern half blotted out in a mess of splattered black ink. Not many landmarks were labeled, save for _home, cliff, echo caves,_ and _dead man's peak._

"Thank you," Adi said, studying it once more before putting it in her pocket. Now she had the complete set.

It was exactly like Slightly's map.

Adi realized that was her problem: she was comparing everything to what had been, what used to be, what was. To move forward, she needed to let go of them and get rid of this pit of hollow anger inside of her.

While she had been thinking this, Tink had pulled her items back toward her and started working again, but Adi wasn't finished.

"You labeled it home. Is that an invitation?"

Tink didn't look up. "It's whatever you need it to be."

Adi stood and pushed in her chair, suddenly smiling and breathless. "Thanks. Again."

There was no room for a reply, because she had already rushed out into the cool night alone. Again. Day would probably be breaking soon, but there was enough time for her to do what she needed to. Half of her wanted to visit the Echo Caves, but the other half told her to wait. There would be plenty of time for that, and she didn't need to be pulled at the seams any harder than she already was.

Besides, everything would be related to _them_ , the exact people she was trying to rid herself of.

Once Adi felt she was far enough away from Tink's place, she pushed her hair out of her eyes and squared her shoulders. Directly in front of her was a towering tree that arched gracefully into the night above, its branches interwoven with those around it.

Steadiness was key. One slip and the whole freaking island would go up in flames, and though Adi was in a bad mood, setting a forest fire was not on her radar.

Gently, as if they were simply a part of the breeze, sparks bloomed from her fingertips and conjoined with the wind, feather light and blazing hot. They rose higher and higher with controlled elegance. For a moment, they looked beautiful; and then they connected with the leaves and set the whole thing aflame.

Adi exhaled deeply and gritted her teeth. Controlling this meant she had control over everything else, meant she was the master of that empty feeling, not the other way around. She had to do this - and not just because failure would burn everyone on Neverland alive.

The fire flared up into the still night, consuming the branches and leaves as it spread. Heat pushed against Adi's face; sweat pressed her shirt uncomfortably against her back, and still, she did not move until she forced her hands together in a solid, distinct motion.

Her magic caused all the flames to condense into one rolling pod of heat which then dissipated into nothing, and Adi was left alone and in the dark in front of the tree's charred skeleton.

Still, she felt off. Wrong. Magic was supposed to make her feel better, not worse, so why did it feel like her insides were trying to swallow her whole? Freedom was supposed to make her feel alive, not trapped, so why did it feel like the forest was closing in on her with every breath she took?

A guttural, frustrated cry of aggression left her lips. Adi thrust her hand forward and, in a column of violet smoke, conjured a shadow, the blank outline of an unidentified person for her to hurt as she pleased.

This wasn't for Pan. It wasn't to make her more intelligent, or a better fighter, or to increase her pain tolerance, or whatever the point of making her fight those shadows was.

As Adi lunged for it with all the rage she contained simmering just barely beneath her skin, a knife in one hand and magic in the other, she knew. None of this was anger at Pan.

It was anger at herself.

* * *

 **this chapter is a little messy, but then again it makes sense because adi is a mess as well (as am I, but that's beside the point). anyway, sorry this chapter is a little dull but the next will be a lot more exciting and I can't wait to write it!**


	11. Forged From Steel

**2.11 | Forged From Steel**

"I've had enough of your games;  
if you're not trembling, you'd better be."  
A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing - This Providence

* * *

 **FOUR YEARS LATER**

* * *

DARKNESS REIGNED ETERNALLY after Adi left. Even after four whole years away from them, every single time she looked up at the strange stars, she still felt like she could blink and be standing right next to them while they named constellations she had never heard of.

That emptiness that had gnawed at her insides upon first leaving them only amplified with time. Adi grew bitter, cold, angry – more than she ever thought possible.

This only drove her to learn how to use her magic without any more fear, so that she could set things on fire with a snap of her fingers and summon weapons without a second thought, until it became second nature to her.

It seemed the adaptation level phenomenon was true; Adi did go back to her baseline level of happiness despite everything.

Almost.

"Are you sure you want to do this now?" Tinkerbell asked, voice tinged with wariness, as she eyed the map with distaste - the same one she had handed Adi four years ago. "It seems...unnecessary."

Adi half shrugged as she tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. "I've finally learned everything there is to learn, and I'm tired of letting those stupid caves mock me. You said to wait. I think it's been long enough."

The blonde looked up at the brunette with a slight frown. "Adi, everything you've been teaching yourself has been good for you. But this? I've seen what it does to people - it can drive the sanest of people mad. Don't underestimate it."

"Don't underestimate _me_ ," she replied haughtily. "I'll come back fine as ever, then you'll see." As the last word left her mouth, she realized she'd rhymed and desperately wanted to say something about it, although it probably wasn't a good idea in the middle of an argument like this.

Tink put her hands up in surrender. "Good luck. Don't say I didn't warn you."

Shoving the map in her pocket, Adi left the ex-fairy alone at the table, shaking her head after the foolish teenager. Tink underestimated her. She didn't know what Adi was really capable of, nor did she understand why she had to visit the caves.

Echo, Ensorcel, and Eidolon, the chain of caves built into the base of Neverpeak Mountain. The books in Pan's cabin and Tink alike had told her enough information for her to see the main purpose. The first forced you to tell your deepest secret, the second showed you your worst fear, the third showed you your deepest desire.

Even if Adi already knew what hers were, she still wanted to go. They would tell her what she needed to know, what she needed to surpass in order to become the best she could be.

Or they would render her insane.

The caves weren't difficult to find: all Adi had to do was find the mountain and follow that - Neverpeak, the place she had nearly died. The same place her brother sentenced himself to a painful demise. The thought made her stomach turn.

A gaping hole in the solid rock, unmarked and unlabeled, was enough to tell Adi she had made it. The summit of Neverpeak towered over her like a heavy storm cloud. She took a deep breath and stepped into the first cavern.

Damp, thin air immediately surrounded her once she stepped out of the cool night. The whole interior was a plain shade of gray, illuminated dully by an unseen light.

Strangest of all was the floor: smooth beneath her feet and the same for a few yards more, but dropping off halfway to the other wall in a deep decline. The bottom disappeared into darkness. Off to the left, the mouth of another cave interrupted the expanse of the stony wall.

Out of curiosity, Adi crossed the floor until she reached the second opening. She wondered what would happen if she were to cross it without anything happening - would it crumble around her? Would an invisible force plow into her and knock her to the floor? Would the stone give way beneath her feet and send her plummeting to her death?

Warily, Adi held her hand up to the opening. Half of her thought she would hit empty air, and the other half thought an invisible force would throw her back, forcing her to face whatever challenge the cave offered her.

To her surprise, it was neither. What felt like solid stone barricaded the entrance, and though she could clearly see through to the other side, she got the unnerving sense that if she tried to push her body through, she would shatter like glass on impact.

She raised her other hand to touch the shield, more out of curiosity than self-destruction, but a voice caused her to whirl around with her fingers twitching over her shoulder for an arrow that was not there - and had not been for four years.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you."

The figure was shrouded in shadow. Had the pitch not been feminine, Adi would have labeled it as Pan by the arrogant taunt in the tone. But as it came into view, her breath hitched in her throat.

Hair the color of night a sleek curtain around her shoulders, cold blue eyes, skin paler than snow, dressed in a ripped emerald outfit startlingly similar to Pan's - complete with leather cuffs encircling her wrists - with a dagger in her right hand and her left on her hip, her eyebrows raised mockingly.

The person was undeniably _Adi_.

A cleaner, more confident, thinner, taller version of her, but Adeline Morris nonetheless.

She flashed a pearly white smile, and Adi found herself hating herself even more - a thought which made no sense at all.

"What?" the real Adi managed.

"Eidolon - beware of your deepest desire," the girl that wasn't her recited in a singsong, taking a step closer. The vision of herself was making Adi's heart race with every move, which made her head ache: how does one scare oneself? "That, obviously, is me."

Was this really what she was like to talk to?

Adi stared at her, confused beyond words. "I desire...myself?"

Fake-Adi rolled her eyes. "God, you're slow. Haven't you noticed? I'm the better version of you. Adi 2.0, the one who stayed by Pan's side and was a thousand times better for it."

"I didn't want to stay by his side!" Adi almost shouted in indignation. "I'm a thousand times better for leaving, not for staying."

"Actually, that's where you're wrong. I'm you if you'd stayed, and let me tell you, you made the wrong decision, sweetheart. I mean, you're going to give in eventually - it's just in our blood - but make it easy and stop resisting. See how much better I am?"

"I see how much more arrogant you are."

"Please," Fake-Adi snorted, shaking a curl from her face. Her hair was the same length as Real-Adi's, and she was starting to wonder if that was a good thing. "You're arrogant, too. All you've been doing is internalizing your problems, whereas I don't have any, because I stayed where I belonged."

"I _am_ where I belong," Adi insisted. "You're not even real."

The phantom grinned. "I'm as real as you perceive me to be. That's why I'm able to do this." She reached forward and pushed Adi's shoulder so she stumbled back, caught off guard. "See? If you didn't believe I was real, my hand would've gone right through you. But subconsciously, you've decided to put your belief in me for whatever reason. The caves never lie."

Adi could not argue with herself on that. She crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow at the perfected version of herself. "So how did you do it? I wasn't in a good place when I got my memories back, so how did you pull yourself back together in the aftermath of that? I ran. Clearly, _perfect_ me wouldn't. Tell me, Adeline Morris, how you did it. How you thwarted every single one of your instincts and stayed despite everything."

Fake-Adi seemed to deflate a little in terms of arrogance, but she retained the confidence that held her shoulders so high; poise and egotism are two very different things. "It was hard."

"That's it?" Adi cocked an eyebrow. "It was hard? Alright, then. I guess even the perfect me still sucks with advice, as expected."

It was difficult to ponder how she was supposed to get through this cave while simultaneously mocking herself.

She was starting to regret not listening to Tink.

"It's hard," Fake-Adi repeated gravely with a glimmer of determination in her icy eyes. "But you tell yourself to get up, you tell yourself to fight, you tell yourself you're going to get past this. And what if you don't? You try again, that's what. You try and try until your knuckles bleed, because there's nothing to do in a place like this, and you learn to forge yourself from steel. You were glass before, but now you don't shatter when you fall. And you won't shatter when he tries to break you."

For what was probably the first time in her entire life, Adi was rendered speechless. She had taken her own breath away. It took her a second to regain her composure, and even then, she couldn't quite look the vision in the eye. "Are you trying to tell me I need to go crawling back to Pan? Because if you're really me, you know there's no way in hell I'd do that."

Fake-Adi blinked innocently, but Real-Adi found it impossible to miss the glimmer of mischief in her eyes. "You tell me - I'm _your_ desire. As much as you deny it, you can't lie to yourself. Don't you wish you'd stayed? You would've become me. Look how beautiful you look like this." The phantom touched Adi's cheek and clicked her tongue, shaking her head. Her silky black hair followed every movement she made. "But instead, you're exhausted and lonely and have no idea what you're doing."

"I'd rather be," Adi hissed in her face. "If it means I'm free."

"Free!" Fake-Adi threw her head back to let out a musical stream of laughter. "Did you miss the part where magic water binds you to this place? As long as you live, you'll never be free. While you're here, why not be happy? Stop deluding yourself into believing you'd rather be alone. Look what good it's brought you."

Hands clenched into fists, Adi had half a mind to fight the thing. The rational part of her knew the vision was right - the caves never lied - but she couldn't bring herself to face the facts. So she did exactly what every single instinct was begging her to: punch herself directly in the face.

Too quickly for her liking, Fake-Adi recovered, sporting a bloody nose and a vicious grin with the glint of malevolence in her eyes that Pan had mastered so well. "Fight it all you like, but you know I'm right."

And, seconds before she could get hit again, the phantom disappeared into thin air, leaving the real Adi simmering with rage alone in the middle of Eidolon.

Heaving a deep breath to regain her composure, Adi moved to the opening in the wall that led to the second cave in the chain. Cautious, she held her hand up to where she shield was. Her fingers pressed against something hard for half a heartbeat before the force melted away, leaving her free to move through.

Her breath seemed to ricochet off the walls in the wide, silent span of the room as she moved to stand in the center. It seemed appropriate to be center stage for whatever the cave decided to throw her way next.

Bracing herself wouldn't have made the impact any less, because Ensorcel hit her like a pound of bricks to the stomach. For half the second she stood by herself in the cave, she thought maybe it wouldn't be so bad.

Wrong.

Shapes began to materialize around her, faint and fuzzy around the edges like shadows, but definitely humanoid and definitely more than one. She counted eight of varying shape and size as they fizzled into existence. They came into focus like she was looking at them through glasses with the wrong prescription.

Circling her were seven of the people she held closest and one she dreaded to face. Seven boys she called her friends, her brothers; the very same ones Eidolon had reminded her she missed so much: Slightly and Ace and Tootles and Max and Devon and Felix. And right in front of her, in all of his emerald and arrogant glory, was Peter Pan himself with a taunting smirk on his lips and a loaded crossbow in hand. Its arrow was pointed directly at her.

Every single boy was armed. As the seconds elapsed, they stepped closer and closer until Adi felt like she was going to drown in a sea of scowls and sharpened knives.

"You left," Slightly accused when Adi looked at him for help, but he had none to give. She fell into Ace when he pushed her roughly away from him.

Ace, too, glared at her with so much ferocity she flinched. Never had she seen his innocent face do anything so horrible. "This is your fault."

"You are nowhere near my sister anymore." Max.

"Pan should've let you die." Tootles.

"Weak. You're weak, Adi." Felix.

"I knew girls weren't cut out for this place." Devon.

Adi desperately wanted to believe that these were only contrived from her own mind, but they looked so real. Too real - so much that she believed in their existence, thus granting them the power to touch her.

All she had to do to get them to disappear was to stop thinking they were real, which was nearly impossible.

They kept shouting things at her, pushing her away when she got too close to any of them and catching her skin with their blades until she bled from her cheeks and arms; the blood mixed with her sweat in the suddenly sweltering heat of the cavern.

Last was Pan, who moved forward with murder in his eyes that flickered soullessly in the dim light as he bared his teeth like an animal at Adi. Vaguely, she wondered if he even had a soul, but the thought was cast aside when he pushed the tip of the arrow into her chest.

She didn't have a weapon to reach for. Not like there was any use; if Pan wanted to kill her, he easily could - resistance would be futile.

Much to her surprise, Pan didn't press the trigger, though his finger ghosted over the curved metal, tormenting her. The razor-sharp tip pierced through Adi's shirt as he moved closer to her, never once breaking eye contact as he whispered a secret for only her to hear: "Remember this, Adeline: you would be nothing without me. I made you. So that makes you mine."

Her hands trembled by her sides, and then curled into fists as she regained herself.

Not moving back for fear of being shot, Adi shook her head ardently and stared him right in the eyes. Unmoving. "Don't you dare call me yours."

Had he or any of the others been real, a number of them would have killed her on the spot. Why wouldn't they? An ex-ally with no real value or affiliation with them, daring to stand up to the only person with authority on the island.

Luckily, they weren't real. Pan and her best friends vanished in eight identical columns of black smoke that shot straight up into the stonework above and dissipated upon contact with the ceiling.

The blood on Adi's arms disappeared. The hole in her shirt from the arrow had mended itself. None of it had actually happened, so why did she feel like her lungs were trying to tear themselves from her body?

That's the thing about fear. Not mildly scary things, like spiders or heights or the idea of imminent death, but the phobias you don't even know exist, the ones that only surface when purposefully brought forward, the ones you only know are there after you've experienced them. You can fear heights and spiders and small spaces in both the abstract and the concrete, but you can't fear hate and disconnect without experiencing them firsthand.

Adi hated herself for it, but she was shaking, and her heart was going far too fast for her liking. The walls were closing in on her. Because she hated what she feared, and because she hated what her deepest secret would be in the next cave.

The unseen force field lifted from the entrance to the third cave once Adi put her hand to it; she held her breath as she moved through it.

Inside, the air was thick and heavy with humidity, like the rest of the island when time moved in relatively normal twenty-four-hour day-and-night periods: hot, uncomfortably warm.

She swallowed thickly, already all too aware of the sweat forming on the back of her neck - whether from the temperature or the challenge she was about to face, she was unsure. Anxiety gnawed at her because she knew exactly what she would have to do in order to leave the cave without it crushing her alive.

The last one: Echo, that forces enterers to tell their deepest secret.

She was glad she was alone. There was no one here to hear her, no one to judge her or to even remember the secret once it was past her lips.

Her footsteps echoed in the empty expanse of the cavern, reverberating back to her, reminding her how alone she really was.

Adi shifted her gaze to the exit, which shimmered with a transparent aura that allowed her to see through to the trees on the other side. It was dark outside, like usual.

Above the gaping hole in the rough stone wall was a collection of words she had to squint to make out, but were definitely there.

She stepped closer, the noise loud in her ears. A message splayed above the opening - a warning to the cheaters who believed they could get out fast enough to escape.

 _Echo. You cannot hide from the truth._

The statement hit Adi hard. She knew exactly what her darkest, deepest, most repressed secret was after the two previous caves had played it out directly in front of her.

Shivering despite the heat, she took a deep inhale to steady herself. She was tired of being nervous, being on edge, being unsteady.

"The visions were right. I call myself strong and independent, but really, I'm bitter. And empty. And I'm tired of being alone. Lonely and alone are two different things, and I'm both. My best friends are less than half a mile away and I haven't spoken to any of them in four years and even though they probably forgot about me the moment I left, I want to be a part of something again. Where I belong."

Adi had to pause there, because her fingernails were digging so harshly into her palms that she was afraid they were going to start bleeding in eight small but painful wounds. Forcing herself to pry her hands apart, she continued.

"Peter Pan has deceived and lied and tricked me too many times. I know that. But as much as he makes me want to start sprinting in the opposite direction, he also makes me want to take another step toward him. It doesn't make sense and I hate him for it, but a part of me misses him."

A glance toward the exit told her that she could pass safely through, for the rippling shield blocking her way out vaporized into nothing. When she cautiously put her hand out, it went through empty air. Adi took that as her cue to leave.

Leaving felt like someone had taken a thousand-pound weight out of each of her pockets. But after a certain point, all heavy things start to feel the same. So that's probably why, when Adi turned away from the mountain to begin her walk back through the woods, she didn't feel any different.

Empty bitterness weighed just as heavily on her as acknowledging her loneliness and desire to return to the Lost Boys. Adi wasn't sure which was worse.

* * *

Like the caves said, Adeline couldn't hide from the truth. She couldn't hide from Peter either, not even from that far away.

Adeline had thought she was alone.

Peter was listening.

The same abilities that allowed him to feel when humans came and went from his island also allowed him to listen in on every word spoken inside of the Echo Caves.

Putting his flute down slowly, Peter kept his eyes on the dancing boys but focused on the female voice that echoed through the cave and into his subconscious.

Adeline was talking to someone - a vision, probably, because the voice sounded undeniably like hers. Frowning, Peter stilled and focused harder.

Both of the voices were definitely hers; one much colder and drained, the other taunting and arrogant. It wasn't difficult to distinguish between the two, because the former sounded a thousand times more confident.

From what he gathered, the apparition was telling Adeline that she would have been better had she stayed with Peter and his boys, had she not run from her problems like a coward.

Peter agreed.

There was a small bout of silence. Peter could only hear what was happening, as the visions were Adeline's alone, but the quiet was broken by a collection of male voices.

Very familiar male voices. He blinked to draw himself from the daze, and realized the answer was quite literally right in front of him: Adeline was facing her worst fear, being hated by the people she held closest to her heart.

They were telling her they despised her and that she should have died, shouldn't have even been allowed to stay. And then there was his voice calling her his. She hated that more than anything, and by the tremble in her voice, Peter could tell she was afraid of it as well.

He filed that information away as something he could use to his advantage later.

Last was Echo, his personal favorite. It lacked visions and trickery - and although Peter was a proprietor of trickery himself, there was something to be said about the subtlety of simple secrets.

 _"Peter Pan has deceived and lied and tricked me too many times. I know that. But as much as he makes me want to start sprinting in the opposite direction, he also makes me want to take another step toward him. It doesn't make sense and I hate him for it, but a part of me misses him."_

The second half of Adeline's secret rang loud and clear like a set of church bells in his ears long after she said it, long after her voice faded from his mind, long after he realized that she was far too proud to ever say that to his face.

And it wasn't difficult to miss the matter-of-fact self-hatred in her tone, the reluctance to say the words paired with the exhausted sigh after. The corners of Peter's mouth rose in a grin.

No one seemed to notice his momentary cessation in concentration, save Felix, who had paused in the middle of the circle with his gunmetal eyes fervently on Peter. Another note sent him falling back beneath the spell.

Adeline's revelations had tugged a vague memory from the depths of Peter's mind and dangled it on a string in front of him, barely out of reach but enough for him to feel as if he could catch it if he tried. He should've been able too, but the passage of time had rubbed away at the memory, making it blurred and unfocused.

Peter stood, brushed the dirt from his pants, and briskly climbed the ladder into his room. On the shelf, among the various handwritten volumes and scattered papers, was a plain beige journal with a lock binding the pages together.

To the plain eye, it was empty. But Peter held the key to innumerable secrets, and the book was one of many.

Peter ripped one of the cuffs from his wrist and pulled the key from the hidden pocket inside the leather, then shoved it into the lock.

Reaching up to pull the pixie dust from underneath his shirt, he uncorked the chained vial and pursed his lips as he studied it. The supply was slowly diminishing. If his plan worked, it would be back to normal soon enough. All it took was a little faith, a little trust, and much patience.

The dust glowed bright green as he sprinkled it over the ninth page of the thin book. Slowly but definitely, ink manifested beneath every speck until a full page of narrowly scripted lettering came into being.

Peter leaned closer to his own handwriting, hoping his memory served him well.

 _When Neverland's time runs out and the power of the island begins to deplete, chaos will ensue. All will perish, along with the abundance of magic it produces. The island will die._

 _There are two known remedies, both of the Neverland Shade. The first is the heart of the Truest Believer. It must be given willingly to the King, so that all of the Believer's trust and hope will transfer into the rebuilding of the island's power. Neverland will heal, and there will be no time to limit that power. Immortality will be granted to the island and all who live on it._

 _But if the Truest Believer is not found, or refuses to give his heart willingly, there is a second option._

 _Love means many things. Loyalty, friendship, family. It is difficult to love a king, but if he ever finds his true love, their heart will work the same as the Truest Believer's. The bond must be requited, and the heart must be given willingly, or it will not work._

Peter leaned back. The Shade had told him this while he stood in front of the golden hourglass counting down the moments he had until his imminent demise. Back then, all he felt was the land's rich power flowing through him. He had felt invincible.

At the time, he had disregarded the second option. Love made you weak; love made you grow up. So he brought only males to his island. One of which had drawn the portrait of the Truest Believer they would need to work together to find.

That boy became the only goal. And he still was. He was so close, barely out of reach but not yet ready to be found. Now that he remembered, Adeline would be an easy replacement if the Truest Believer failed.

Not that Peter ever failed.

* * *

 **Sorry about that time jump, but it was a little necessary for the plot to progress. Next chapter we'll see the return of the Pan and Adi dynamic (one of my favs to write bc they're both arrogant, sarcastic assholes) and either in the next or the one after that, the return of Adi and the boys' dynamic, which is...interesting. The caves (plural, the ones other than Echo) are my concept that I was a little iffy about including, but oh well I like the idea of Adi being confronted by her 'perfect' self, despite how cliché it is. Oh well.**

 **About the true love thing: give it time. Not to worry, things aren't always as they seem..**


	12. War of Minds

**2.12 | War of Minds**

"You've got the world on its knees;  
you're taking all that you please  
you want more,  
but you'll get nothing from me."  
Enemies - Shinedown

* * *

ONE OF THE reasons Peter Pan never failed was due to his unyielding sense of determination, and the other was attributed to the lifelong loyalty of his Lost Boys. Because had it not been for Felix convincing him otherwise, Peter would have gone right ahead and dragged Adeline back into his side of the world again, with or without her permission.

Lucky for her, Felix was the perfect right hand man, which meant she would get to fight Peter as much as she wanted when he came looking for her.

A sharp rap on the side of the open door startled Peter from his thoughts. He started, swiveling his head around to the left to see Felix's tall frame leaning in the doorway. "Your shadow visited."

"Visited? Did it not need to speak with me?" Peter rose and crossed his arms over his chest. Rarely did his shadow visit for no reason at all.

"It did," the blonde nodded. "But it talked to me instead."

Peter wasn't in the mood for Felix's short, clipped sentences. "And?" he drawled out, sure to make the irritation leak into his tone.

"The Truest Believer has been located. Those two imbeciles you sent to retrieve him are closing in, so he should arrive within a week or two. It also said that even though the second option is not necessary, we should still secure the girl's loyalty - her power will help us," Felix relayed.

Absently, Peter nodded, fiddling with the leather cuffs encircling his wrists. "I was planning on it anyway."

Felix seemed nervous to say something, which was unlike him. He bit his lip and shifted his weight much like Adeline used to. "What did it mean by second option? Is there another way to save the island without the boy?"

By the time he had gained enough power to be called second-in-command, Peter had completely forgotten about the second option; when he told Felix all about the issue of running out of time, he failed to mention it at all.

"Yes, actually. I'd forgotten about it until now." Peter paused, his eyes sliding away from Felix and landing instead on the books splayed on the desk to his right. "If someone is ever to love me, their heart will work just the same."

"Is that why you were thinking about getting Adi back anyway? You think she's in love with you?"

The words alone sounded ridiculous to Peter. Probably to Felix as well, and he was the one who had said them.

He rolled his eyes. "No, of course not. It would have happened with time. I'm rather charming, if you hadn't noticed. And you know me; I love a good challenge."

"Good thing you do," Felix said without emotion. "Because even though we don't need her as a backup, getting her to return will be far from easy. Getting the boys on board will be even harder."

"How do you figure?"

There was a pause in which Felix stared incredulously at Peter. "Adi left without even saying goodbye to the people she called her brothers, and has made no attempt at communicating with them in four years. I don't think they'll be very excited to see her."

At this, Peter bared his teeth in a grin. "Don't doubt me, Felix. I always have a plan."

"I've never doubted you, Peter," he replied without missing a beat. "But Adi has a track record of thwarting your plans, and I don't think time would change that."

"It'll be fine, Felix," he soothed. "There's a saying that corruption is easy. Light is stolen by despair, and then darkness sweeps in like a disease. And once hope betrays you, you can't help but let the devil inside." Peter had read or heard or been told something similar to this back when he still lived in the Enchanted Forest, a piece of advice that helped him often.

"You're not the devil," Felix pointed out. "And she doesn't have much light left to steal." Then he climbed down the ladder and out of sight, leaving the king on his own in his empty candlelit room.

For a moment, he remained there, studying the shadows flickering against the wall like individual reapers coming to collect his soul, telling him his time was up.

Peter shook his head to rid himself of those thoughts. There was still time. He shouldn't be spending what little he had left to save himself being afraid of dying.

After so long confined to one side of the island, Peter had blocked out the western side like it didn't exist. On his mental map, Neverland was incomplete; one half blotted from existence.

Now, he cleared his mind, erased the barrier, imagined the island whole, blurred the boundary dividing east from west until it was gone and he could see the entirety of the land, until he located the single pinprick of magic not a mile from where he stood.

A smirk twitched at his lips. She was so close in more ways than one.

When Peter found Adeline, her back was to him. She stood in the middle of the jungle, hands raised with determination, her silhouette black against the row of trees she had set ablaze.

The flames burned on, even as Adeline let her hands fall. They scorched the trunks of the evergreens charcoal black, spiraling plumes of smoke up into the clear night sky.

"That can't be good for the environment," Peter commented lightly.

Adeline started, whirling around with fire already on its way to burning him alive. He simply shot her a wry smile and deflected it; the flames fizzled out in midair. The trees burned on behind her, casting shadows over both of their faces.

They both took a second to study each other. Perhaps it was the light, but Adeline looked different, other than the length of her hair and style of clothing. It was evident in the way she held herself: purple underlined her dull blue eyes, her lips were chapped and bitten raw, she was unarmed.

That second was all Adeline needed to recover. When she spoke, her voice was icy cold. "What are you doing?"

Peter cocked an eyebrow. "Am I not allowed to visit my favorite Lost Girl?"

She flinched visibly at the title. "No."

"You cut your hair," he observed with a slight frown. "Shame. I preferred it long."

Adeline locked her jaw. Her stubbornness had not changed, but Peter noted her resolve seemed to have strengthened. "You need something. Whatever it is, I'm not giving it to you."

"Ouch." He pressed a hand over his heart, feigning hurt. "And here I thought you'd missed me."

"Missed you?" she repeated with a sharp chuckle. Peter swore the fire behind her grew brighter. "You know what, Pan? You don't get to do this. It's been years, and if you think I'm going to come running back to you like some lost puppy, you're out of your damn mind. Leave me alone."

"I'm not here out of the kindness of my heart, Adeline. I need your help."

"Need or want? There's a big difference."

" _Need,"_ Peter said, dropping all mockery. "I need you to help me - to help us. Not you and me, but the boys as well. Our lives depend on it."

Adeline narrowed her eyes at him. "That's nice."

"You're not going to let me explain?" he asked quietly.

"You forfeited your right to explain the moment you arrived here, and you know that."

Peter did anyway. "There's a boy in the Land Without Magic, a boy who can save the island's dying supply of magic. He'll be arriving here shortly, and I need you to secure his loyalty to us. You see, we need his heart, but it has to be given willingly, and I need all the help I can get, no matter what. This is your _home_ , Adeline, you can't just let it die."

She was shaking her head, disappointment laced into her words. "Pan, I'm not going to help you murder someone, much less a child. That's what'll happen, right? We get his heart to save the island and he dies?"

"I didn't realize you had a death wish, Adeline." Peter tilted his head to the side. "If I'd known earlier, I would've killed you when I had the chance."

"Excuse me?"

"When the island dies, it'll take us down with it. Starting with you. The boy's heart is what saves Neverland. Saving Neverland saves the magic that keeps that nasty poison from your bloodstream. Saving the island saves you, as well as the rest of us. Besides, he won't die. He'll just have to stay here with us."

A white lie he'd formulated for her sake as well as Felix's. Neither of them would be jumping to agree had he told them the truth – but they'd learn in time. Perhaps when it was too late, but they would know at some point.

"One life for fifteen?" Adeline pursed her lips. "Doesn't sound exactly fair."

Peter grinned widely. "Now, when have you known me to be fair?"

She rolled her eyes. "Okay, say I decide to help you. Then what? We go back to the way things were, pretend nothing ever happened? Because, I don't know about you, but that's not happening."

"Yes." He nodded earnestly. "What was it you said earlier today? You're lonely? You miss us? You miss...me?"

Her lips parted as shock and horror fought for dominance across her face. "You were _listening_?"

There was accusation - no, betrayal - clear in her tone that almost made him feel guilty. "Not really my fault, considering everything said in the caves I can automatically hear in my head. It wasn't by choice."

"You know what?" Adeline asked. Her voice was raw; a few sparks crackled loudly behind her as she took a step closer to Peter. "Maybe you're right. Maybe I do miss you. Miss the boys. But then I remember who you are, what you do, and I know I can't. I cannot run back to you. I can't."

"And what is it that I do?" He didn't realize it, but he was moving closer to her. And she wasn't moving back.

"You see things, and you call them yours because they have no one to lead them. And you take what you call yours with manipulation and blood." Adeline was shaking her head now, glaring at Peter with such an intensity he wanted to step away from her. "But I'm not yours to take."

When the last word left her mouth, the growing inferno behind her sputtered out and died, leaving them in the dim light of the moon with the acrid stench of smoke in their lungs.

"I'm not claiming you, Adeline. I realized a long time ago that no one owns you. I'm asking you to be my equal."

That seemed to hit her differently than anything else. She took a long, shuddering breath in, no doubt inhaling some of the ash caught in the low breeze, and considered. "Come back tomorrow."

That would take time. The one thing Peter was quickly running out of. He had to force himself to nod. A positive answer later would be better than a negative one now.

"I'll see you then."

Neither offered a goodbye.

She looked uncharacteristically small in the darkness. Peter disappeared on the spot with one last glance over her, and Adeline was left in the charred remains of the mess she'd made.

* * *

There is a lesson everyone needs to learn before they progress into adulthood, a lesson so important Adi was surprised she was never taught it in school in Storybrooke. She learned it before, when her name was Fallon, when she faced some of the worst horrors in her life before she was even sixteen years old.

Pain is not beautiful. It is not something to be taken lightly. It is not poetic, despite what poets may lead you to believe. There is no beauty in suffering.

Adi knew because she had felt it what seemed like a thousand times, and not once did she ever call it beautiful. As she walked back to Tink's home and she felt the stab of pain prickle in her heart again, she refused to call it pretty. It was not poetic.

It felt like a metal clamp around her insides that reverberated inside of her with each step she took.

An even more painful idea was the one that Adi would soon have to talk to Tink about what had just happened while still attempting to wrap her mind around it herself.

And as she made her way through the woods, the scent of smoke heavy on her clothes and skin, all she could wonder was: _why?_

The only explanation she could formulate was that Peter Pan loved to watch her suffer. Because when he left her standing alone in that smoke-ridden clearing, he had wrenched a blade from her stomach and left her to bleed out.

"Tink?" Adi called out once she was inside.

There was a moment of silence. Then the blonde popped her head through one of the cutouts in the floor made for easy escape. "Right here." She shot the archer a small smile and hoisted herself up through the opening. Tink opened her mouth, still grinning, but it dropped when she saw Adi's face. "What's wrong?"

"I -" Adi fumbled for words, fingering the edge of her leather jacket and refusing to meet her friend's eyes. "Pan."

Almost automatically, Tink went for the knife hooked into her belt. "I'll kill him."

She shook her head. "He wants me to come back. Like, to him and the boys. Because, apparently, if I don't, we're all going to die."

Troubled, Tink led Adi over to the table with a frown twitching at her lips. "Pan's a lot of things, but he's not a liar. If he said he needs your help, he meant it."

"So you're saying I should trust him? I should go?"

"Adi, I can't tell you what to do. But if you do, be careful." The ex-fairy tapped her fingers along the table. "Part of you might think he's changed, but he hasn't. He hasn't in centuries."

"But what if he has now?"

"Absence doesn't make the heart grow fonder," she said, leaning closer. "It twists at your mental picture of them until they become something they're not."

"I know what he's capable of." Adi was careful to avoid answering her - because Tink was right, as much as she didn't want her to be.

"Do you?" Tink pressed. "Does anyone know?"

"I thought I did, until he came back asking me for help. I didn't think he had it in him."

"His primary goal is power. If he has to sacrifice pride in order to do that, I don't think he cares."

"Power," Adi repeated with a soft chuckle. "Funny. I care a lot about power, too."

Tink studied her with a guarded judgement glittering in her pale green eyes. "I know. That's what scares me."

"I haven't given him an answer yet. Tomorrow, I can decide. Right now, I'm worried about how I'm going to stop all the boys from killing me on sight."

When she left, she hadn't really thought about it. Selfishly, she left without saying a single word to any of the people she called her best friends. Her brothers. Four years is a lot of time to build up anger. It was a stupid, impulsive decision that she was going to have to pay the price for.

"Trust me, I don't think you'll have to worry too much about that. Whatever Pan does, they follow; so if he decides to pretend like nothing ever happened, it's likely that they will as well."

Adi chewed on the inside of her cheek. "That's sick."

"Not to them."

After a small bout of silence, Adi realized something. "I won't see you much if I go."

The blonde stared evenly back at her. "As long as you visit."

Nodding, Adi stood and offered Tink a smile. "I still haven't said yes yet."

"But you've already made your decision," she replied solemnly. "I know it."

Adi faltered in her stride toward the door. "What makes you say that?"

"Even years later, you've still managed to find your way back to him. It's like no matter what you do, you end up by his side. If you're so much as tempted, I know you'll say yes. You might be proud and rebellious and whatever else you call yourself, but nothing's changed. You still miss them."

"I'm not scared of him."

"That's not what I said," she pointed out. "It's not because you're scared. It's because you're alone."

The accusation trailed after Adi all through the forest, between the trees, with the breeze, until she reached the edge of the jungle where the earth cut off in an enormous rift between the east and west.

In the chasm between the land, water sprayed up against the cliffs. Adi remembered when she once stood on the other side of that fissure, looking down at the water so far below, her stomach churning with nausea.

Now, not even a thrill of fear ran through her.

Then she snapped back to reality and stepped away from the abyss, running a frustrated hand through her curls, wishing more than anything to escape the twisted maze of her life.

If she could go back and do it all again, she would have thrown the stupid coin that brought her to Neverland into the Atlantic. Without it, none of this would have happened. Perhaps she would be home, twenty-one years old, reveling in her freedom, out of high school, maybe with a job and a normal life.

Tink's words hit her again, full force, like a brick to the stomach. Yes, she would be free, but she would also be alone.

All magic comes with a price, but so does freedom. Adi knew the cost: loneliness.

* * *

"Have you made your decision?"

Adi jumped at the sudden sound of Pan's voice. There was no way to determine when the next day was in the eternal void of night, so she was unsure when to expect him.

Something akin to fear churned in her stomach, but she wasn't really afraid. She kept up her steely cold demeanor as she stared up at him from where she sat at the table, hands folded in front of her like she was about to recite a prayer.

Pursing her lips, Adi shook her head. "No," she said, her voice raw. "I haven't."

"It's been a day," he pointed out through gritted teeth.

She shrugged and stood. "I'm not very good with decisions."

"Yes, you are," he argued. "You make them faster than you can _blink_."

Dragging her fingernails across the table, Adi shifted her weight and glanced from Pan to the wood and back again. "I like it here."

"You're always alone."

"There's a difference between being alone and being lonely."

"You're both, Adeline. Let me help you." In the dim light, Pan looked genuine. His eyebrows scrunched together and he stepped closer with every word until only the table separated them; even then he leaned forward a little more.

That's what hurt. The fact that he was trying to convince her to come with him under the lie that it would be better for her. But really, all he wanted was for Adi to help _him_ , not the other way around. It stung.

Only Peter Pan could do that. Look her straight in the eyes with absolutely no expression while he simultaneously - and probably unknowingly - tore her heart to shreds.

Adi took a deep breath. There was an expectant pause, and then she finally met his stare: sapphire on emerald. "You're not going to help me," she said. "All you need is for me to help you."

"Of course I need you. You already know that. But if you do, you'll be helping yourself too. I'll help you. And you'll get what you really want."

"Which is?"

"You already know the answer to that question."

Part of Adi wanted to answer _do I?_ and keep stepping closer, keep challenging Pan, keep at the same old dance they knew so well. Instead, it felt like her insides were being coated in ice water.

She swallowed. "Okay, fine. Yes."

Pan's face broke out into a wide smile, and the mischievous glint in his eyes returned. "I've told you before, Adeline. Peter Pan never fails."

Adi opted not to respond. Already, she was starting to regret her decision.

When Pan held his arm out for her to take, she shook her head. She didn't want to teleport with him just yet.

"What now?" he demanded.

"Let's walk. I need to talk to you before the boys kill me."

He rose an eyebrow at this but nodded anyway, disappearing down the ladder without waiting for her and leaving her standing alone in the place she had - loosely - called home for four years. Taking the knife from her pocket, Adi hovered it over the table and then began to carve.

 _THANK YOU_

 _A_

A message for Tinkerbell. She left the dagger behind.

Was it rude to deface the table? Yeah, probably, but she left before she could dwell on it too much.

Pan was waiting for her on the ground. "Some of the boys understood. The other half are still angry."

"Bet I can guess who is and who isn't."

"They'll learn to forgive you."

This time, it was Adi leading the way through the jungle: the west was her territory, not his.

"Forgive me?" She glanced over at him with a laugh as she sidestepped a fallen log. "Forgiveness and a second chance are two very different things."

He hummed at this, and they continued in silence. Adi tucked some of her shoulder-length hair behind her ear and held a branch out of the way for him.

"So does me coming back to join your renegade or whatever mean I'm your right hand now?" she asked with a hint of a smirk playing at her lips.

A roll of his eyes. "Felix is my right hand."

She gave a half shrug. "So I'll be your left."

"That isn't -"

"I know, but you're left handed."

Pan smiled at this. It made Adi's lungs feel like they were on fire, and she couldn't quite put her finger on why.

"Are you sure you're up to the task?" He smirked over at her. They had crossed the boundary a few paces ago. There wasn't much distance between them and camp now.

"You wanna find out?" she challenged.

Deftly and swiftly, quite like himself, Pan changed the subject. "There's that attitude I've missed so much. And here I thought my absence made you cold."

"Oh, it did. But I'm made of steel, Peter Pan, and metal is always cold."


	13. From the Ashes

2.13 | From the Ashes

"If you could only see  
the beast you've made of me;  
I held it in  
but now it seems you've set it running free.  
The saints can't help me now -  
the ropes have been unbound."  
Howl - Florence + the Machine

* * *

FOR SOMEONE MADE of steel, Adi was feeling pretty vulnerable.

Even with the power she held inside herself and the power of the boy king beside her, the vulnerability grew the more she thought of facing the Lost Boys.

It would be impossible to face them. After she left them without so much as a goodbye, an explanation, they would not look her in the eyes, would adamantly refuse to welcome her back.

Adi was guilty of a lot of things. Theirs were just another group of names to add to the ever-growing list of people she'd let down.

Not long after she started to consider the rest of that list, Pan broke through the barrier of the camp, her in tow. Seeming to sense her hesitation, he took her by the wrist and essentially dragged her the rest of the way through the trees. Adi wasn't even thinking clearly enough to tell him to get off.

Pan whistled to get the boys' attention. "My brothers!"

All twenty-something of them - their numbers had grown in her absence - formed a semicircle around the two.

"Adi?" Slightly was smiling so widely she was afraid his face would get stuck like that.

Before she could respond, someone else interrupted. "Pan, what the hell is she doing here?" Tootles had his arms crossed over his chest as he fixed Adi with a scathing glare that might have burned her if she wasn't shooting an equally fiery one back.

"I've already explained, Tootles," he said evenly. "Adeline is powerful, and we need her. Besides, don't you miss your sister?" The words were seamless, like he'd been practicing how to reply in the years she had been gone. Pan said her name like a war cry.

"My _sister_? Her?" he repeated, appalled. "There's no way -"

The girl in question stepped forward and raised an eyebrow at him. "However you're going to finish that sentence, know that I absolutely agree. You might not trust me, but remember I'm the one saving your ass, Tootles."

Tootles tilted his head back to let out a harsh, clipped laugh. "I don't need anyone, much less you, to save me. You come back here with a haircut and a change of clothes and you expect all of us to pretend like you're some kind of savior. But you're not. We were doing just fine without you, and we still don't need you."

"Are you questioning Pan's judgement?" Adi challenged. "Because it seems to me that he believes I'm a pretty important component of the plan. And I'm ready to fight - you or anyone else, whatever's necessary."

Devon moved forward then, shaking his head with a nasty sneer curling on his upper lip. "We're supposed to trust you? When we don't even know if you're going to stay loyal to Pan? To us?"

"I never said you had to trust me," Adi shot back. "I understand if you don't. But my loyalty to you did not die when I was gone - Pan knows that, but I'm not sure how to make you see it too."

"You could be lying," Devon said.

"I could've been lying from day one. But I had a choice," she said. "I came back of my own free will, not out of guilt or vengeance. I'm stronger now."

Silence followed. It hit Adi then that none of them knew of her double identity, how she had a life before the dull one of Storybrooke, how the collision of Fallon and Adeline was too much for her to handle. It would be impossible to make them see.

"If you're so strong, then I challenge you," Tootles said into the quiet. "Fight me. Whatever weapon you choose."

Violet smoke leaked into the air as Adi summoned a knife to her palm faster than anyone could blink. He wanted to fight her as proof of her sincerity, so be it. When she beat him, he would see.

Tootles grasped the sword from his belt and gripped it so tightly his knuckles went white. A sword against a dagger was nowhere near a fair fight, but fair wasn't really in any of the boys' vocabulary.

Adi lunged at Tootles the moment he appeared ready. He had been expecting her to taunt him with useless banter like always - that was his downfall. Expecting her to be the same as before was his biggest mistake.

Eyes widening in surprise, he fell back as she aimed low at his sword and pushed him further toward the trees lining the edge of camp.

He parried her next swipe by shoving his sword beneath her outstretched arm and toward her stomach, but she spun off to the right and took his moment of stunned hesitation to knock the weapon from his grasp.

Weaponless and powerless, Adi drove him back with her knife until his back hit the tree, and then she placed the blade directly in line with his chest. Breathless, she smiled. "I win."

Neither of them moved for a moment. Tootles looked like he wanted to rip her head from her shoulders, but Adi returned the scowl with a victorious beam as she backed away.

"That was an unfair match," Devon cried from the sidelines indignantly. "Adi's always been better than Tootles. Everyone knows that."

Adi couldn't help but roll her eyes. It had been Tootles' idea in the first place. "Then who do you suggest I fight?"

"Felix," he replied with a smirk. "No one's ever beaten him. None of us, at least."

The hooded blonde came to the front of the semicircle, the corner of his mouth quirked up in a grin. After four whole years, he still hadn't changed. None of them had. And by his expression, Adi could tell he understood - he wasn't upset with her.

"You know me," she said. "I love a good challenge."

Shifting the knife in her hand to a sword, Adi fingered the leather grip and prepared to battle. Devon wasn't kidding when he said Felix was good. She'd seen him fight before, and he had absolutely no mercy, not even for a friend.

He raised his eyebrow; now, he was unsure if she was going to take the first swing or not.

She did. Adi lunged at Felix, cold fire burning inside of her. At least until her eyes met his, and she fell back. The strange shade of greyish blue in his irises reminded her how close they were, of who she used to be, and she couldn't bring herself to strike him.

Felix, on the other hand, didn't seem to care. He took the offensive and her the defensive, stepping back each time he swiped his sword toward her and blocking it, shoving the blade away but making no move to retaliate.

"Stop holding back!" Pan yelled from somewhere behind her as she feinted to the side.

The command caused something to shift in Adi. Alive with a sudden ferocity, she leapt forward. Felix, alarmed by her abrupt aggression, fell back and let her advance on him. Swipe after swipe, she grew closer and closer to slicing his skin.

Her eyes fell on a tree root a few steps back from where they currently were. Smirking, she kept forcing him back, throwing in a couple complicated jabs to distract him.

Just as planned, Felix stumbled back when his heel caught on the root. He half-fell in the dirt, one hand on the ground to break his fall and the other still clutching his sword.

One fatal strike: Adi smacked his right hand with the flat front of her weapon and his tumbled from his grasp. In the next instant, the tip of her blade slashed across his face.

Dead silence.

It took her a full five seconds to comprehend what she had done. Felix rose in that time, abandoning his sword at his feet. Blood trickled gruesomely down his face and dripped into the ebony folds of his cloak.

 _She_ had done that, created that diagonal gash that stretched from the top of his nose to the middle of his right cheek. Horrified, she could only stare out of pure shock and stutter apologies.

To her – and everyone else's - utter surprise, Felix laughed. _Laughed_. He raised a hand to the crimson liquid covering the entire side of his face and pulled it away to examine the slick substance. "Gotta say, you've got guts."

"Oh my god," Adi said quietly, still barely able to comprehend the implications of what she'd done.

"Don't panic," he replied with an edge of sarcasm. "I'm still breathing, aren't I?

"Let me heal it."

Dropping her sword next to his, she reached forward to touch the wound and studied the blood that coated the entirety of her palm. The cut sealed itself as she ran her hand over it. A thin white scar was left in its wake.

With another wave of her hand and storm of purple, the blood disappeared as well. Felix reached up to touch the new accessory to his face, grinning.

 _Nice to see you again, Felix! How about I slice your face as a welcome-back-present?_

"How badass do I look now?" he asked.

"You're an idiot," Adi decided.

Maybe Felix didn't care about the fresh scar dividing his face in two. But the rest of the boys? When Adi turned to look at them, her heart sunk. She had made a mistake that might cost her all of their trust.

Devon had his arms crossed. "See? She can't go twenty minutes without hurting one of us."

Christopher, one of the boys she barely spoke to outside of the group, nodded. "I don't trust her."

"I told you." Tootles.

"Leave her out of our plans. We don't need her." Thomas.

"She's not welcome here." Ben.

Adi's worst fear was coming true. None of her friends had said a word against her, but they hadn't risen to her defense, either, which was almost as bad. Felix, Slightly, Ace, Leo, Max...their mouths were sealed.

"That's enough."

All the attention turned to Pan. His voice was low, the kind of quiet that made Adi wish he was yelling instead, because that would've been easier to stomach. This anger was controlled. Deadly.

"But -"

"I said enough," Pan repeated softly. "Adeline has returned for a reason. I trust her. Felix trusts her. Her departure was selfish, but was in her best interest. She's staying."

"You don't have to call me your sister anymore," Adi cut in. "I wouldn't want to either. But even though I've changed, I'm still the same person you met four years ago when I had no idea what I was doing."

"You're nowhere near the same person," Tootles said coldly.

Adi was done arguing with them. Nothing she would say could convince them that she wasn't the enemy.

"I can't abandon the person I used to be. I carry her with me."

* * *

From the edge of camp, deep in the shadows between the borderline trees, Peter could hear every word said within the compound.

"So what made you come back?" Felix sat down beside Adeline, setting his club on the ground by his feet.

She looked up from the book she had taken from Peter's cabin – _Once Upon a Time_. If he wasn't mistaken, she was reading her own story.

"You don't know?" she asked dryly. "I'm supposed to help save everyone and be a _hero_."

"You didn't have to," he countered.

After some hesitation, Adeline closed the book and set it on her lap, resting her palms atop the cover, obscuring half the title from view. "Well...how much do you know?"

"About the island dying? All of it. The boys have been told there's a plan in the works, nothing concrete yet. But Pan keeps me – and I guess you, now – informed. It'll work. And apparently, we need you."

 _Come on Felix, don't give away the secret. Not yet._ Peter thought as he clenched his teeth.

"Do you know why you need _me_?" She seemed nervous to ask, as she turned her head the other way to the jungle, eyes landing on an area dangerously close to where Peter was hiding. It would've been almost impossible for her to see him in the darkness, but her gaze only a foot or two away from where he stood was unsettling.

Felix's eyes flickered away from her, too. They both held secrets. "No. Ask Pan."

Adeline hummed in reply and returned to tapping her fingers along the binding of the book in her lap and tracing her eyes along the edge of the ever-changing fire. With her lip between her teeth and her shaking hands, Peter couldn't decide if she was nervous or just thinking, or a combination of the two.

"You're not mad at me?" Her voice came out uncharacteristically soft, like she was afraid to be heard – which was unusual.

"Am I supposed to be?" Felix arched an eyebrow at her suspiciously.

"Well...yeah." She shrugged. "I literally said nothing to you before I left. I come back, am forced into fighting you, knock you down, and then permanently scar you. One of those alone is grounds for anger. But all of them? You should want to kill me." She paused for a moment to furrow her brow. "Most people do without any reason at all."

"I'm not an idiot, Adi, I –"

"That's debatable."

"I get it. I've read that book." He motioned to _Once Upon a Time_ in her lap. "Pan told me your memories returned, too. And the scar makes me look scary."

"I knew it," she replied with a smirk and a single shake of her head. "I knew you'd think that stupid thing was cool."

They lapsed into silence. Around them, the other Lost Boys cast random looks their way, but always returned to their normal tasks before they could think twice about joining them. Peter observed this with a vague impatience building in his stomach.

Max wandered over a moment later and sat on the opposite side of Adeline, his fingers twitching over his leg like he was attempting to grasp for a weapon. His other hand was squeezed into a fist at his side, looking like his nails might draw blood.

"Adi," he said as he looked up at her, but she was already staring at him reproachfully. "I just wanted to say I trust you. Not only because Pan does, but because you're brave and strong and I don't think anything you did was meant to be cruel."

Adeline stiffened. "I used to think it was in my blood to be cruel, and that I couldn't alter that part of my fate. It was just a part of who I was."

"Screw that," Max said fervently, quite like Adeline herself. "You don't like your fate? Change it."

"I'm not quite sure that's how it works."

His soft voice grew louder with each word as his confidence increased. "Change comes easier than you might think. And I think you can change the way the boys feel about you if you give it time."

He didn't give her time to reply. As the last words left his mouth, he was already on his feet and escaping back to the shelter of his cabin away from the questions of Adeline and the accusations of his brothers.

Peter debated straightforwardly asking Adeline to speak with him, but he knew her well enough to assume she would get overwhelmed when the rest of the Lost Ones joined her and Felix around the fire.

To his surprise, they weren't done just yet, even when some of the others sat with them, a couple of the ones (supposedly) on her side: Ace and Leo.

Adeline adjusted herself to prop her elbow on top of the book, palm on her chin. "I used to want to be a hero," she suddenly said into her hand, a faraway look in her eye. "Like, a princess or something. I'd wear all these colorful dresses and braid my hair and pretend I was okay with being told what I could and couldn't do because I was a girl."

In response, Felix snorted. "What changed?"

"I got angry. Screw princesses. Actually, screw royalty. The queen's the reason I'm here anyway."

"If I ever meet her, I'll be sure to kick her ass for you."

Sure enough, once Devon and Tootles sat across from her and started sending death stares across the flames, she stood. The book in her lap fell to the dirt with a definitive thump that silenced every single person.

Uncomfortable, Adeline shifted her weight beneath the weight of so many gazes. "I'm going for a walk."

And by the time she reached the edge of camp, ten feet from where Peter hid, the boys had exploded back into loud, uncontrolled conversation like she hadn't been there in the first place.

Because her back was turned, she couldn't see Felix and Slightly looking after her with frowns on the corners of their lips.

She visibly swallowed as she walked through the jungle alone.

Peter followed a few paces after her, as silent as his shadow. Adeline, on the other hand, didn't seem to care about the racket she was making every time she set her feet down.

Finally, she paused, as if sensing he was behind her.

So he asked, "Why'd you leave?"

Adeline turned around to him. Her face was shrouded in shadow, but he could still make out the blank expression on it without looking twice - she was predictable like that. "I got tired of the scrutiny. Should I even ask why you followed me, or should I be expecting it at this point?"

"I wanted to talk to you." When she gave him a look, like, _and?_ , he sighed. "Alone."

"About what?" She scrunched her eyebrows together.

Although Peter felt undeniably exasperated, he kept it to himself. It was his job to remain cool and collected while the ever short-tempered Adeline exploded with emotion. "Your true reasons for leaving."

She couldn't seem to resist shooting him an irritated glare. "Half the boys were glaring at me like I'd killed you, so I decided I wanted to be alone for a little. Something you clearly didn't pick up on."

He shook his head, chuckling a little. "Before."

"I already told you," she said, defiant.

"Adeline, you're acting like a child. Technically speaking, you should be in your twenties."

The most infuriating part was that she knew exactly what he was talking about, and still, she found ways to skirt around the truth. For someone who considered herself honest and unapologetic, she was being too hesitant to tell him.

"You're kidding, right? Peter Pan, the boy who has been eighteen for hundreds of years, is telling _me_ to grow up," she said. "Besides, have you ever met a college student? They watch Spongebob and wear pajama pants out to dinner at McDonald's at one in the morning. That's about where my level of maturity is."

"I have no idea what half of those words mean." Peter raised an eyebrow and stepped closer. "Stop avoiding the question - I wouldn't have asked if I didn't want an answer."

"I said that, too."

Peter took another step forward. "We both know that wasn't the whole story. There's something else you're not telling me, something you're hiding from all of us."

Something like fire flared in her cobalt eyes. "Is there? Please, Pan, enlighten me, because I'd love to know what you think it is that I'm keeping from you. It seems you've already figured out everything else about me, so why not another thing? Why not jump to yet another conclusion before you even hear what I have to say?"

There were two options, and neither was looking like it would have a good outcome. Peter could reveal the secret he was keeping so close to his heart that he had nearly forgotten about while Adeline was absent, or he could toy with her a little.

One would change everything; the other would be more fun.

In the pause Peter took to consider this, Adeline threw her hands out, frustrated, until he opened his mouth to speak. Patience was a virtue she still had yet to grasp. "You were afraid you were going to fall in love with me."

Adeline's jaw dropped. At first, she sputtered for words with wide eyes; then she took a deep breath and regained her composure. Well, some of it. "I'm sorry, _what_? Where did you get that idea?"

From the curse breaking when Peter had kissed her, but he wasn't about to tell her that. "Maybe you didn't even consider it. Maybe, subconsciously, you pushed it away and blamed it on the merging of your double identity. Either way, I know it's there. Strong as ever."

She let out a short laugh. "You're delusional. I really, really hope you know that."

"Am I?" Peter said, chuckling as well. He put his arms behind his back in a gesture of innocence. "It seems the only things you allow yourself to feel are anger and annoyance and bloodthirst. Sometimes panic. Not anything else, much less attraction, but I know it's there."

"Whoa, whoa, back it up there, buddy." Adeline held her hands up; her eyes were blazing. "I feel a lot of things I don't exactly care to share with you. You're not my therapist."

 _Buddy?_

"And yet, I know you better than anyone else," he shot back with a smirk.

"You don't seem able to comprehend this, so let me spell it out for you," Adeline said slowly. "I do not - and will never - love you. Understand? I know you have an extremely inflated sense of self-worth, and that's fantastic, but don't attribute it to everyone falling in love with you."

Peter found her amusing. Because when something as simple as a kiss broke a powerful curse cast by a powerful wielder of magic, it meant something important.

"Are you sure about that?" Peter challenged with a taunting grin. By now, it was just entertaining to watch her get riled up over nothing. Well, almost nothing.

"Positive," she replied through gritted teeth. "I know enough about survival that I will _always_ put myself first. That's the way a pirate lives. Now, if you'll excuse me."

An unnecessarily dramatic turn on her heel later and an angry stomp further into the woods later, Adeline was gone.

Peter snorted to himself in the silence. The girl was a better liar than he had ever thought possible.

That, or she really didn't know. He wasn't sure which was better.

* * *

Tinkerbell was less than pleased with the news Adi brought her. In fact, for the entire duration of the story, she couldn't help but stare at the brunette with such incredulity that she stopped speaking.

"Adi, I know you think you made the best move, but now I'm not so sure. This doesn't sound right."

"Relax, I'll be fine. All I need to do is pretend like that conversation never happened."

Because as much as Adi didn't want to admit it, the idea of her and Pan ever becoming something terrified her beyond belief. Not because she hated his guts, but because part of her could picture it.

Part of her wanted to: the one that used to want to be a princess, that wore all those pretty dresses and hair pins and jewelry, the one that believed her only fate was to be married to some man she'd inevitably fall in love with.

The other part called her a weak, prissy child for even considering the thought. He was wrong, he was wrong, he was wrong. She ran out of self-interest, not out of fear. And she could definitely take care of herself.

"That doesn't sound like a good idea." Tink frowned. "You can't leave this hanging above you while you do this...thing you still haven't told me about."

"He doesn't know what I really think," Adi promised. "And I'd tell you if I knew. Really, I would."

Tink didn't trust Adi anymore - that wasn't hard to deduce. It was understandable, but it still stung when the ex-fairy pursed her lips and avoided her gaze.

Letting out a long breath, Adi put her head down on the table. She needed this island-saving-kid to arrive before her head exploded. A little action never killed anybody.

Probably.

* * *

 **I toyed with the idea of an Adi vs Felix conflict, but decided against it bc my girl Adi needs some friends and happiness bc she's a bit of a mess at the moment. Not to worry, she'll be back and better than ever in a few chapters or so!**


	14. The False Truth

**2.14 | The False Truth**

"I've been through and seen a lot;  
lived at the bottom and the top.  
We're on borrowed time,  
but time isn't enough."  
Room to Breathe - You Me at Six

* * *

WHEN SHE WOKE, Adi felt terrible.

Her head was pounding, her heart racing, her throat dry. Her eyes burned despite the distinct lack of morning sunlight, and she closed them against the darkness.

She was pondering how long she could stay under the covers before someone came to wake her up when the worst possible scenario happened.

"Rise and shine, Adeline. We've got a big day ahead of us."

Grumbling, Adi lifted her head two inches off the pillow and squinted up at Pan's beaming face. It took her a grand total of two seconds to decide she'd rather die than talk to him. She rolled over and yanked the blanket over her head.

"Leave me alone."

Not only did she feel ill, she was also still on edge from his accusation the night before. Despite her denial, there was still some tension heavy in the air by the time she crawled into her newly recreated bed in Pan's cabin.

'Morning' didn't help. If anything, the perpetual night only made it feel like they were running in place.

"Get up," Pan said, this time with more force, as he ripped the covers off of her.

Rolling her eyes, Adi sat up and ran a hand through her tangled mess of curls. "What do you want?"

Much to her annoyance, he looked wide awake as he grinned brightly down at her. "Training, of course."

She stood and stretched, stifling a yawn. "I finished your stupid training forever ago."

"Not quite," Pan countered with his infamous self-satisfied sneer. "There are a few more loose ends to tie up before you're ready."

 _I could kill him right here if I needed to. Not ready my ass,_ Adi thought bitterly as she straightened her wrinkled shirt and believed her teeth to be brushed. "Alright, whatever, let's go."

"Excellent." Pan reached out to grasp her by the elbow. He probably didn't miss the cringe away from him, but he held on anyway and teleported with her in tow.

They appeared in the middle of a clearing just like every other Adi had encountered on the island, with one small discrepancy: the tips of all the leaves were singed, and the faint scent of smoke decorated the breeze like a light spray of nauseating perfume.

Immediately, she understood. Her lips twitched into a small smile. "This is where you taught me how to use magic."

Either Pan had no other place to take her, or he was being nostalgic. She chose to believe the latter.

"And it's where you'll finish learning," he said, mirroring her expression. "Magic isn't everything - you'll need your bow."

A jolt rushed through her as she remembered where she had last seen it. "I don't have it."

His left eyebrow rose. "Where is it?"

"Er..." Adi thought back to the pile of charred ash, dark against the white sand of the western beach as the tide rushed in and carried the remains of her belongings out to sea. It was likely not a good idea to tell Pan the bow he had made for her was scattered in the vast ocean. "Not present."

Closing her eyes, she held out her hand to envision her old bow, the handmade wooden one with matching chestnut arrows. The more she thought of it, the more she realized - that bow belonged to the clueless Adi who only wanted to fit in, who wore the cloak of the Lost Boys and told herself she was like them.

And there was the one she had hand-carved as Fallon, but that wouldn't be right either. She wasn't like either of them anymore: not naive, not conforming, not only following a sole goal of vengeance.

Now that she was stronger, she needed a bow to fit her, not Fallon or the Adi who had first arrived on Neverland.

In a puff of violet, she created her perfect weapon. It was entirely black, constructed from sleek metal. The string has enough slack to make the arrow both precise and accurate. In her free hand appeared a quiver of the same ebony shade, stocked with shiny silver arrows.

Smirking a little, she pulled one out. The tip was silver like the rest of it, sharpened to a deadly point so that when she brushed her index finger over it, it came away bleeding.

"Different, but it suits you," Pan said from beside her.

But she wasn't done yet. More magic fell over the arrows like a cloud while she magically infused them with dreamshade. There was no room for mercy when the fate of her, her home, and her friends was at stake.

"Good," she replied as she swung the quiver over her shoulder with determination. "So what are we doing?"

"Are you ready?" Pan asked. Without waiting for an answer, he conjured something behind her - she could tell by the precisely lazy flick of the wrist and small breeze against her back.

Something about the purposely lackadaisical nature of it all made her grit her teeth, but she turned to face the other way regardless.

Even if Pan had told Adi what he was forcing her to fight, it would never have prepared her for the real thing. Because standing there with a brilliant, blood-stricken smile on his face and dressed in the same clothes she had watched him die in was her brother.

"Liam," Adi breathed, awestruck that even after all this time, his face still made her chest ache.

There was an odd mixture of black liquid and blood on his lips that dribbled down his chin. Poison.

It was the dreamshade he had injected himself with on Neverland, the same reason Fallon had found him dead in Killian's arms in the middle of the captain's quarters not two days after she had shouted at him and tried to set fire to the ship.

But now, with Liam staring at her with that slightly grotesque grin and his hand wrapped around the sword at his side, Adi felt her knees waver beneath her. It had been so long since she'd seen his face. Whatever argument they'd had before he departed for Neverland all that time ago seemed a speck on the horizon, so far away from where she was now.

Pan noticed, unfortunately. "What are you waiting for?"

"Excuse me?" she asked, incredulous. "You're out of your mind if you think I'm going to hurt him - if you think I'd fight him like those shadows you used to make to 'train' me."

"I'm not asking you to hurt him. Not yet, anyway."

"Excuse me?"

"Let me show you something first, Adeline. Then, I promise, you can harm or leave him alone as you please."

Adi deemed the hallucination of her brother less important than Pan's so-called promise for the moment, and fully turned toward him. A few nerves screamed for her to turn around, to never turn her back on an enemy, but Liam – real or not real – was _not_ an enemy.

Sarcasm dripped down her words. "Forgive me it I don't believe your promise to be trustworthy."

"Then just trust me for a moment," Pan replied with that arrogant grin of his.

Although she wasn't entirely sure that was possible, she obliged and nodded all the same. There was something in his faced that lacked the usual sinister nature that made him Peter Pan, but Adi couldn't quite put her finger on what.

She was distracted from her contemplations by the feeling of Pan's hand suddenly on her forehead, an action vaguely reminiscent of a psychic, and then the world around them melted into daylight shining over a landscape she knew well.

Squinting in the sudden sun, she could make out the view from the top of Neverpeak Mountain, right outside of Dead Man's Peak.

When Adi glanced down at herself, her form was vague and hazy like that of a ghost, semi-translucent and even paler than she already was. The scene around her, however, was in perfect color and quality, like she had been inserted into a movie on an HD screen.

However, Adi wasn't particularly fond of watching movies where she saw her eldest brother motionless on the dirt, the other bent over him.

Killian's back was to her, but she could visualize the look of panic on his face. "Hey, hey." He shook Liam, attempting to lift him with all the strength he had, but this was before he was a pirate, before he was as strong as he grew while searching for vengeance. "Let's get you back to the ship, come on."

"I tried to warn you." A sudden voice caused the conscious Jones siblings' heads to snap up toward the one and only Peter Pan. Even all that time ago, he wore the same clothes, held himself the same way, spoke with that same cocky edge piercing his tone. "I told you that dreamshade is poisonous."

Adi couldn't help but think, _old habits die hard._

He strolled over, lazily, a wicked gleam in his eye. "He'll die as soon as the poison reaches his heart."

"Please," Killian said in a very un-Killian-like manner. Adi had forgotten what he used to be like. "He's my brother. He's all my sister and I have left."

"Well, maybe you shouldn't have goaded him into it," Pan pointed out with a roll of his eyes.

"He's so stubborn – I didn't mean to!" He leaned into his brother in a desperate attempt to both hide the tears from the boy as well as bring his brother back.

Adi's throat felt like it was closing in on itself, slowly but surely restricting her ability to breathe. All that time ago, the only thing she had wanted was to come along with her brothers to the mysteriously magical Neverland, to join them in their adventure.

Now? She still wished the same – but not for the adventure. She wished for the ability to do anything to save Liam.

Pan, it seemed, was on the same page as her. "Where's your sister?"

"She stayed behind."

 _Was_ forced _to stay behind,_ Adi corrected bitterly.

"Perhaps you should've brought her along – perhaps she's more intelligent than you."

Despite this version of Pan having never met her, Adi felt a swell of pride. Even without knowing who she was, he felt inclined to believe she was more capable than two men combined.

Killian appeared at a loss for words, looking with drawn eyebrows from Pan to Liam to the shore and back again. "Can...can you help me?"

The self-titled king inhaled deeply and moved closer. "It might not feel like it, but today's your lucky day. There is a way to stop him from dying." He waved his hand toward the thorny dreamshade plants, and they moved aside, revealing the stone-filled waterfall that had saved Adi's life. "This spring – this water – is rich with all the power of Neverland. It's what keeps this land and all on it so...young. If one was to drink from it, its powers could cure any ill."

"Thank you," her brother breathed, and passed Pan to enter the stony, open area.

"But –" Pan grasped him by the shoulder. "I must warn you. All magic comes with a price."

"And this price is...?"

"The water only works while he's on the island. Once he leaves, it won't any longer."

Considering this for a moment while fumbling with the canteen hanging from his belt, Killian glanced back to Liam. "I don't believe you."

Adi might've been biased, as she knew exactly what this boy was capable of (and that the water worked), but she wanted to throttle her brother. If Pan had been right about the plant's poisonous nature, why would he have lied about the water as well?

There was also the fact that this same situation had played out many years later, with a different sibling and a different setting, but the dreamshade hurt both Liam and Adi the same.

A sudden hatred for the Jones' stubbornness and pride shot through Adi.

"So be it."

Pan watched Killian rush toward the water, keeping his eyes trained on the older man as he backed out through the dreamshade plants. Then he appraised Liam with a frown. And then – the strangest part – he looked directly through the transparent Adi with squinted eyes.

Killian's footsteps could be heard from behind. His emerald gaze still on Adi, he disappeared.

With part of her tempted to explore the island in this distant memory and another part distracted by Killian leaning over Liam with the water in hand, she barely noticed the island blurring and fading into a pixelated gray before it was replaced with the current Neverland, darkness, and Pan pulling his arm away from her.

Adi wiped away a stray tear she couldn't remember shedding. "Why did you show me that?"

His only response was to motion behind her, to where Liam suddenly looked the same he had in the memory: shallow breath, pallid skin, blood dripping down his arm, barely moving.

"What's the point?" she half shouted, voice raw, grating against the cool night, while multiple emotions battled for dominance inside – some anger, some sadness, some fear.

"You'll see," Pan said quietly. "Calm down, Adeline."

"Don't tell me to calm down! You showed me my brother's death once, and now you're doing it again – don't you think I get it? I couldn't save him, okay?"

"That's not what this is for."

Behind her, Liam let out a strangled breath, and then stilled completely.

"This isn't about teaching you how to fight or survive," he continued. "It's about proving my theory."

"Your _theory_?" she spat.

"Well, two theories. The first, that you would never stop loving your brother, no matter what happened. The second, that even when you've seen that I was the reason Liam died, you wouldn't hate me."

Adi fixed him with a blank stare, a sharp feeling developing in her stomach. "I should. I should hate you more than anything in the world." She took a deep breath. "But I don't. And I have no idea why."

"I have an idea."

"Don't rely on this test to gauge the level of loyalty I have for you," she continued as if he hadn't spoken, " I haven't forgiven Killian."

"Good," Pan told her with that mischievous grin tipping the corner of his mouth upward. "Hold onto that, because you're going to need it."

Vaguely, she remembered him telling her something like that before, a long, long time ago.

She frowned, and said, "You're going to tell me whatever the hell it is you're up to sooner or later, or I'm done."

"Is that a threat?" Pan cocked his head to the side, smile playing at his lips.

"No," Adi answered, grinning. "It's a promise."

* * *

 _By the time her brothers returned, the sun had just barely skimmed over the edge of the horizon, spilling golden rays along the strangely still ocean. The_ Jewel of the Realm _, in perfect condition save for the one sail Fallon had unintentionally set aflame, cut through the water like a knife all the way to the dock where she waited._

 _Neither Liam nor Killian, however, was on the deck waiting to greet her. When Fallon questioned one of the men about it, he refused to say anything._

 _Quirking an eyebrow at him, Fallon ripped her arm from his grasp and attempted to go down to the captain's quarters._

 _"Miss Jones!" he called after her. She gritted her teeth at the name. It made her feel a lot older than sixteen._

 _"What?"_

 _He sputtered out a few choked noises, but said nothing. She rolled her eyes and pushed the door open, hiking her dress up so she could walk downstairs without falling flat on her face. She had done that after a fight with Liam - ending up on the floor bruised her ego far more than it did her cheek._

 _The door swung in its frame behind her with a resonating creak. There was rustling in the corner that abruptly ceased._

 _"Killian?" Fallon asked into the silence, suddenly nervous. "Liam?"_

 _"Fallon, go back outside," Killian ordered, his voice unnaturally rough._

 _Sirens wailed inside Fallon's head. She scrambled down the steps as best she could without tripping, but faltered on the last one when she saw exactly what it was Killian didn't want her to see._

 _Lying on the floor with a mess of black and red liquids smeared across his chin was Liam. A dark splotch was dripping onto the floor. He wasn't moving._

 _Fallon froze. "Liam..."_

 _Was Killian crying? He got up from their brother's side and moved toward his sister, his arm outstretched in a gesture of surrender. "I -"_

 _"What happened?" she whispered, so low she wasn't sure he would be able to hear it._

 _But he did. There was a pause, a shuddering inhale, and Killian spilled out the story of Peter Pan, the boy king who ruled Neverland, about the poison the queen had sent them for, about Liam stupidly poisoning himself, about the antidote, about his collapse the moment they left the island._

 _There were a lot of terms Fallon used to describe herself. Crybaby wasn't even one she had considered – not until now, when she took one more look at Liam and broke out into sobs, screaming at Killian and the unmoving body of her eldest brother, her words incoherent through the thick tears swelling her throat._

 _When a minimal amount of the agony subsided, Fallon wiped her face. She took a deep, calming breath, and stared at Killian with red-rimmed yet blank eyes._

 _There was a hostile, raw anger leeching like poison into her words, staining them red and black like the blood and dreamshade that covered both of her brothers._

 _"Peter Pan is a dead man."_

* * *

It was impossible to gauge time in a place plagued in constant darkness and stuck in some limbo where time didn't technically exist. But Adi had a mental perception of about what time it should be.

Around midnight on her internal clock, she came down from her room with her old journal in hand and placed herself in the small open space directly between Tootles and Ace. Max and Felix watched her from across the fire, the former with a wary expression and the latter shooting her a warning glance.

Adi was tired of their immaturity. Tootles and Devon kept giving her dirty looks at every possible moment; Ace and Leo were pretending like she didn't exist. It was time to deal with her problems before she took on another extraneous one that could potentially save their lives.

Dead silence. The flames crackled and popped in the quiet, until Slightly broke it. "Adi, what's that?"

"My old notebook." She held it up for them to see. It had been used a total of three times: two for when she felt panicked, one listing all the strange dreams she'd been having. "I think I might burn it."

Devon snorted. "You trying to show us you've changed?"

"No," Adi replied coldly. "I don't need to burn anything to do that. This is for me, not any of you."

Burning with anger, she tossed the book into the fire. A few seconds froze in the air as it remained unharmed in the heat, and then the ravenous flames licked the ebony cover and swallowed it whole.

They all watched as Adi's the last of past ignited and then burned into ash.

"I'm sorry," she finally said into the still air. Her voice was quiet, hoarse. "I really am. I messed up, and I know it, and you don't have to forgive me, but I still am. I'm trying to fix this before everything else goes to crap."

No one said anything, but Ace locked eyes with her and nodded, followed instantly by Leo. A concession.

Tootles still looked like he wanted to murder her, but she was unsurprised.

But that was okay. Adi realized something as she watched them bubble back to life like they had before she'd sat with them, as she watched the silver metal spiral of her journal succumb to the heat of the flames, as she watched the column of smoke trail off into the sky, wispy like a ghost.

She had done what she could. Fought back against Pan when he demanded her obedience, made friends with (most of) the boys, learned to fight, figured out how to control her magic, combined her two identities. And now she knew who she was and exactly what she was capable of.

Earlier that morning, Adi had felt awful. But something happened today, something that freed her and reminded her that it was time to let go. The past was in the past. She even had a new name to prove it.

A terrible, hungry part of her wanted to give in. To be ruthless, a killer, like Pan wanted her to be. At least, she thought he wanted her to be.

There was always something holding her back. Perhaps, though, she would be there soon.

Adi was absolutely positive that she was a fighter. And she knew she was absolutely willing to fight until the end.

* * *

 **Hope y'all caught that Pan did tell Killian that the water would bind Liam to the island. That doesn't happen in the show, but it's important to Adi's feelings toward her brother later in the story...**


	15. Heart to Kill

**2.15 | Heart to Kill**

"You have stolen all my senses;  
there's a fever in my heart.  
And you are taking my defenses  
you are pulling me apart.  
Forever we're young and we are dying  
and we will be spilling all our blood.  
So I will take away my feelings -  
I will be an animal."  
Animal - Ellie Goulding

* * *

THERE EXISTS A tipping point between gods and monsters, heroes and villains, light and dark, good and bad.

Fallon Jones danced around that point, and once she crossed, she was careful to never turn back to the hero, the light, the good.

Adeline Morris did not dance around that point. She didn't gingerly, reluctantly step over it like she did the boundary between east and west. She took one look at it and shattered it. She may have been on Pan's side, but she was not going to obey without a fight. She would not allow herself to become like Pan, to be like the pirate she used to be.

It didn't help when Pan made a reappearance halfway through Adi's catching up with the boys, demanding she follow him.

"Where to now?" There was no missing the aggravation in her tone, the heavy tiredness that weighed it down. "Who am I going to see die this time?"

"Yourself, if you don't stop with that attitude," Pan snapped in reply as he led her north, up toward the mountain – which was odd, considering the boys favored the southern beaches more than the rocky northern grounds.

"Are you implying you're going to kill me?" she asked tiredly. "Or that if I don't comply, we're _all_ going to die?"

He let out a short breath through his teeth. "Both."

"I'm not dying."

"I wouldn't be so sure if I were you."

The trees were beginning to thin out the further he took her away from home (when did it become home? She couldn't quite recall), the closer the mountain got. But then Pan veered off suddenly to the right and continued past Neverpeak, trudging even further.

Short of breath, Adi brushed a twig from her short hair. "It isn't a question of if I survive, but how. That's the thing about pirates: we specialize in self-preservation."

Pan didn't reply, only led on.

For a walk half filled with silence and half with teasing banter, it went quickly. Adi didn't realize where they were headed until the jungle gave way to a beach – a different one than the one ringing around the southernmost part of the island. This was rockier, with coarse sand and calmer waves and, strangely enough, an even smaller island not too far off the coast.

"What is that?" Adi questioned as she squinted at the stone mass: the structure looked to have several holes punctured throughout it, all of which flickered like fire against the night and mirrored onto the water below.

She hadn't even noticed Pan had trailed away from her, a few meters away, and was now standing beside a wooden rowboat.

"Get in."

"Where are we?"

"Get in," he repeated with more force.

Hands on her hips, Adi glared at him. "Not until you tell me where we're going."

What little patience he had remaining in his reservoir of tolerance for the day slipped away as he let out what sounded vaguely like a guttural growl from the back of his throat. "It's called Skull Rock. I promise, you'll find out in a few moments. Just trust me."

True to her word, Adi stepped into the boat and watched as Pan started to row them toward _Skull Rock_. The closer they got, the more she realized that the name was not a misnomer. The very shape of it was of a skull, and she felt like hitting herself for not seeing it sooner: each indent in the rock represented an eye or a mouth.

A chill shot down her spine. Despite it only being stone, something about it set her on edge, made her more nervous than before. Pan probably thought the thing was glorious.

He brought the rowboat to a sandy bank through the skull's mouth, tied it with a string she hadn't seen before, and led the way up a set of spiral steps that opened into an even wider room than Adi thought would fit in a place like this.

It was enormous and empty, a cavern that would've made her feel claustrophobic after the Echo Caves if not for the perforations in the ceiling that were undoubtedly the skull's two eyes. Further toward the back of the room – if it could even be called that – was a maze of stalactites that reached up toward the ceiling without ever touching it.

And right in the center of the room, the place Pan glided to without so much as a glance around, was a magnificently built golden hourglass that pulsated magic like a heartbeat that Adi could feel inside of herself, a second life force guiding the power that ran through her veins. Golden sand trickled in a slow but steady stream from the top to the bottom of it, and she got the nagging sense that the dwindling amount in the upper half wasn't going to take too long to run out.

She understood after a moment of Pan's expectant stare flickering between her and the hourglass. "It's how long we have until the boy arrives."

"Not quite, Adeline, but good guess. No, this counts down how long we have until the magic runs out. Completely. The boy is what stops it."

"So why are we here instead of preparing for his arrival?"

Pan sucked in a breath through his teeth. "I have a theory."

"Really?" Adi turned to face him with a sardonic grin twisting at her mouth. "You seem to have a lot of those."

Either he wasn't in the mood – doubtful – to fire back something equally sharp, or the situation was much more pressing than she had anticipated, because he replied in a flat tone. "Because you have such an emotional attachment to the island – to everyone on it – and because it has shaped you into who you are, I want you to try and stop the sand."

Contrary to popular belief, Adi did not have an extensive knowledge of hourglass magic, but she was pretty sure emotional attachment didn't qualify as grounds to break the laws of magic – and, she supposed, of space and time itself.

Besides, he had magic, too, and Neverland meant just as much, if not more, to him. What made him think she was so special?

But Adi didn't say any of this. Instead, she let out a sharp laugh that echoed in the cavern before escaping through the skull's eyes. "That isn't going to work."

"Please, Adeline, you have to try."

She almost laughed again, but the sound died in her throat when she turned her gaze from the hourglass to him. His jade eyes were filled with an emotion she hadn't seen in its true form on him until then: fear. Peter Pan was afraid. No, terrified.

Adi was afraid too, but this was different.

It was then that she understood how desperate he truly was.

"Okay," she said as she turned to the hourglass and shoved her hair behind her ear. "Then how do you propose I stop it?"

"I don't know," Pan admitted, which was odd for him. He was supposed to know everything – the words sounded strange coming from his mouth. "I was hoping you might."

Under her breath, Adi muttered something she wasn't sure she wanted him to hear, but focused all of her energy on the golden object instead of him. Because it was what fueled the entirety of the island, it wasn't hard to accomplish: the heartbeat it seemed to emanate synced with hers; each grain of sand that fell was a breath, a blink.

With every bit of power she held inside, she willed it to halt. Holding her breath as if it would make a difference, she clenched her hands into fists at her side and tensed her entire body, believing (and praying, though she wasn't sure what to) that it would stop.

Somewhere off to her right, a shuffling noise shattered her concentration.

Adi took a step back, blinking herself out of the trance she couldn't remember falling into. The sand was still sinking – was it going faster than before? Or was she only imagining it?

She began to say, "Pan, I –" but cut herself short when she saw what the source of her concentration-breaker was: the hazy form of a person (man?) hovering a few feet above their heads in silence. It didn't have a face, but if it did, she would bet her bow it'd be glaring at them.

"Peter Pan," it said. The voice that came out was not that of a man – it was a thousand different people speaking at once, condensed into the husky tone of this...being. This shadow. "Adeline Morris."

 _It knows me? What the hell is this thing?_

"I have allowed you to stay on this island despite breaking every rule set before you. I have tolerated you deeming yourself its king. And I have watched you manipulate this girl, watched you bend and break her to your will. But you must know: she cannot stop it."

"I bend to no one's will," Adi said with an ardency she wasn't aware she possessed.

"It matters not," the shadow replied with a coldness to offset her heat. "Peter Pan, you know what must be done, do you not? This is not the right way to put this girl to use. You know as well as I do that the hourglass cannot be stopped."

"I had to try."

It hit her as she realized how pale Pan appeared when he looked up at the shadow: this was the Neverland Shade. The one she had read about in the handwritten guidebook to the island so long ago. That's why it knew everything - but why did it wait until now to intervene?

"An idiotic endeavor," the Shade remarked in that unsettling voice. "I have tried to stop you from learning the truth. It is too late. One of the hearts, or nothing, but I will not allow you to break the rules any more than you already have."

Something about what it said didn't sit right with Adi. When she turned to ask Pan, she saw the panic flickering in his eyes, and frowned. " _One_ of the hearts?"

"It doesn't matter," he said quickly, and muttered a quick, albeit halfhearted, apology to the Shade before dragging her by the wrist out of the room and back down the stairs.

"Of course it matters." She ripped her arm from his grasp halfway down the steps and stopped to glare at him. "Pan, what is going on?"

Desperation? Ignorance? Apologies? No, this was not the Peter Pan she knew; this was some fearful, anxious variation of him.

The further Adi and Pan traveled through the forest, the further they got from Skull Rock, the more his uncharacteristically distressed demeanor melted back into the one she knew well: the self-righteous, demanding one. It didn't take long.

Neither spoke a word; out of shock or exhaustion, she wasn't sure, but when he pulled up at the edge of a particularly wide clearing, she couldn't help but sigh.

 _Where the hell is his off button?_

"Let me guess." Adi rolled her eyes before Pan could even say anything and mocked his voice, " _I have another task for you, Adeline."_

"Your accent is appalling," he huffed, but didn't deny it. "The boy will be here within the next day. You need to be ready."

Ready? Of course she was ready. But she wasn't about to tell him that. So she nodded and waited for him to do what he always did: the lethargic, almost uncaring wave of his hand in the general direction behind her.

The sight of her opponent made whatever quip forming in Adi's mouth dissolve on her tongue as something like a rock formed in her stomach. Despite the fact that fire pulsed inside of her like blood, she suddenly felt cold – too cold – and unable to move.

"Adeline," Pan warned. "We don't have all day."

"Um," was her intelligent, clearly well thought out reply. "I don't think..."

Adi talked a big game, but seeing it right in front of her was entirely different. Seeing him – seeing Killian – made her feel sick to her stomach. From fear or hatred or both, she was unsure.

"Why not?" demanded Pan, his voice growing louder as he stepped closer to her. She didn't turn around, her gaze transfixed on Killian. "Because he's your brother? Remember what I showed you yesterday. Remember what he did."

He was absolutely right. Fallon had harbored a grudge against him from the moment she realized her brother was never coming back for her in the queen's dungeons. And even with her memory returned four years ago, Adi didn't like him any more than she did Pan when she recalled her past with both of them.

But now, with the man himself standing before her in all his leathery glory, chin tipped high with that glimmer of smugness that clearly branded him a pirate, that look she knew so well that she could almost immediately mirror it, she faltered.

Pan laughed, a breathy chuckle in her ear, closer than before. It was more at her than with her – mocking her inability to take action. She would've been offended if she wasn't so conflicted. "Think about it, Adeline. Need I remind you that Killian left you helpless and defeated in the queen's castle without even bothering to look for you? That he simply carried on as if you meant nothing to him?"

"I meant everything to him."

"Don't make excuses for him!" he nearly shouted in her face. "And don't overestimate your worth. If you meant everything to him, wouldn't he have found you? Or followed you to make sure you made it out of the queen's palace alive?"

"He knew I could handle myself," Adi replied fervently, spinning on her heel to let Pan feel the full burning force of her glare. "I'm not some damsel in distress that has to constantly be watched."

"Even when you didn't return, Killian never came after you. When he came here to bide his time to find revenge on Rumplestiltskin, he had forgotten all about you. His _dearest sister_ was a distant memory."

Adi suddenly found it difficult to keep up her intense glower at him. Her breath hitched in her throat as she realized that Pan was correct. The heroic version of her brother that she had placed on a pedestal was all wrong; the pedestal, instead, was nothing more than a flimsy cardboard box that threatened to give way at the slightest movement.

Filled with a renewed heat, she felt the sneer in her expression deepen the longer she looked at her brother. She gripped the dagger in her pocket and transported herself to stand a foot away from him.

Killian observed her with a passive stare, eyes the pure blue of a flame. Like hers. "Good to see you, Fallon."

None of the others had made any attempt to communicate aside from trying to kill her up until now. It was jarring. She hesitated, but regained her composure and fixed him with a scathing glare. "You know I don't like it when you lie."

And in one fluid motion, she sliced her knife into his arm.

He shouted aloud, and faster than she could blink, slashed his hook up into her face. A flash of silver and spark of pain later, blood dripped from her cheek onto the dirt below. Now she and Felix could match.

The only weapon he had was the hook, and for another, lesser opponent, it would have been enough, but not against her.

Adi brought her hand up to her face; her fingers were stained sticky with crimson when she pulled them away. All movement stilled as he gaze flickered from the blood to the icy anger in her brother's eyes. Her lip curled in distaste.

Apparently, she was taking too long for Pan's liking. "Get on with it."

It was a slow process for Adi to reconcile the Killian she now knew with the one she had loved so much before, but the longer she looked at her hand, teeth gritted, the more fury she felt build up inside.

Without a hint of reluctance, she forced her blade forward until it touched the leather of Killian's jacket, mere inches away from gutting him when he caught her wrist with his hook. He attempted to throw her to the side but she redirected his shove and used the force to throw him to the ground.

Either Adi had gotten stronger, Killian had gotten weaker, or the phantom was only a faint indicator of his true strength. She was willing to bet on two of those options.

The magic she unintentionally threw into her arm caused the pirate to hit the dirt in a cloud of dust and leather like he weighed nothing.

"Fallon, stop!" he called out, desperate, but she stood over him, seething with anger. He didn't care about her. All he wanted was to survive so he could put his own interest over hers again, and again, and again until she died, like Liam.

Adi undoubtedly looked feral as she towered over him with her bared teeth and stringy hair, but she couldn't bring herself to care as she drove the dagger into his chest, through the heavy layers of leather and cloth until blood spilled out and stained the black. It glistened burgundy in the pale moonlight.

Killian's next words died in his mouth; the further she pushed the blade into his skin, the more he choked and struggled. But she refused to give up, twisting it until he stilled, breathing shallowly with tears in his eyes.

A minuscule piece of Adi felt remorseful. He, unlike Liam, had been her closest companion for an entire year, and many more before that. While Liam was like a replacement for her parents, Killian was truly her brother.

 _Who didn't care about you_ , she had to remind herself.

Killian was still blinking, cobalt irises staring blankly up at the midnight sky. Her old name slipped through his teeth in a whisper, a plea for mercy.

Adi ripped the knife from him and glowered. "That isn't my name."

A single, rattling inhale, and he moved no more.

There was a pause in which she could only stare at him, and then he and the blood and her dagger disappeared in green smoke. She had to blink to draw herself from her daze - she had forgotten that it was only a hallucination.

Still, Adi didn't look up until Pan's shoes filled the space where Killian's body was. When she finally looked into his eyes, she realized how perfectly emerald they were, the same exact shade as the forest, like he was the island itself.

"How do you feel?" he asked.

She came up empty. "How am I supposed to feel?"

"Exhilarated," he prompted. "Happy."

"I feel clean," she finally decided after a few moments' pause.

Pan's face split into the biggest smile she had ever seen on him. "That's good. Really good."

Was it? Adi wasn't entirely sure it was, but she felt different than before once she realized she had turned into the exact thing Pan had been edging her toward from the beginning. From day one, this had been what he had been pushing her to become. And at first, she had resisted, refused to be a part of his charade.

"I'm on your side, you know," she decided to say out of the blue.

He looked mildly surprised. "You're not afraid I'll kill you? Or get you killed?"

"I was. But if you were going to, you would've done it already. You've saved my life numerous times, and even came back for me when I left your side. I already know I have some sort of value to you, and it's enough for you to keep me alive."

"I thought you said you didn't give up." Pan raised an eyebrow.

She half grinned. "I didn't. I don't. There are more important things to fight than you. Real things."

He surveyed her, head tilted to the side in curiosity. "It's far harder to kill a reality than a phantom."

"I know. But I've killed before, and I know what it's like." She smirked. "Besides, I've fought you for nearly four years, and you're possibly the worst person I've ever met. What could be worse than you?"

Pan rolled his eyes. "That's the spirit."

* * *

"I'm pretty sure there's no such thing as a 'Neverbeast,'" Adi said dryly to Ace later that night, shaking her head. "You're just making stuff up now."

"I am not!" Ace retorted, indignant. "I've seen it."

She paused in the middle of sharpening her knife to raise a single eyebrow at him. He was a terrible storyteller and an even worse liar. "Right. Take a picture next time, will you? I'd love to see it myself. Maybe give it a cute nickname and take it up as a pet."

Leo cut in. "I believe him."

"Then you're dumber than I thought you were," she quipped without skipping a beat.

He opened his mouth to say something else, but was interrupted by Tootles, who took it upon himself to interject into the conversation between Adi and Slightly and Ace and Felix, where he was clearly unwanted. "Don't go pissing off the only friends you still have, Adi."

"Aw, Tootles, we're not friends?" She feigned a pout.

As much as he should've been used to her sarcasm, Tootles either didn't notice or pretended not to. "No. We're not." He said it like it should've made her burst into tears.

Instead, Adi looked up at him with a stony expression. "Okay, but consider this: I legitimately do not care."

And she didn't. In light of recent events, she had many more pressing matters to attend to than some teenager's grudge against her. Granted, it was warranted, but he if he wanted to continue to hate her until the end of time, she was okay with it.

She decided to care about saving the island and her friends first; then she would give herself the luxury of fully fixing the mess she had created.

Tootles replied with an indignant huff, but sat down all the same.

The conversations continued, but Adi couldn't find it in her to contribute anymore. She was exhausted from the day's (well, technical day, considering it was still dark) events – Liam and receiving most of the boys' forgiveness and realizing she really was on Pan's side and Skull Rock and Killian. It was enough to make her head spin.

She was just considering the best ways to excuse herself without seeming rude when Slightly nudged Max who nudged him back but carried it over to Felix, who then elbowed her in the ribs to finish off the odd chain of getting her attention. "Hey, we want you to show us something."

"That sounds...ominous." She raised an eyebrow. "What is it?"

"You'll see," Max cut in with a smile, then stood alongside Slightly. Felix did the same, so Adi felt obligated to as well. "It's a surprise."

"That doesn't help," Adi replied under her breath as the three lead her away from camp. When she turned around, she was unsurprised to see Tootles giving her his patented death glare, to which she replied with a broad grin before she disappeared into the trees.

It was dark, even with the dim light of the crescent moon, so she lit a fire in the palm of her hand like a torch. "Where are we going?"

"You'll see," Slightly said, sounding like he was enjoying her frustration a little too much.

They moved in a line: Max leading the way, followed closely by Slightly, and a few feet back, Adi, and Felix behind her. It was silent save for their feet against the forest floor, and she couldn't help but think of a few hours ago when she and Pan were in the same situation.

Only this time, she was surrounded by her friends, and the tenseness in her shoulders was easing.

Part of Adi expected them to be taking her to the beach, but she was pleasantly surprised (she couldn't remember the last time she'd paired those words together) when the trees gave way to a place she knew somewhat well: the cliff.

Max looked at her, an expectant look on his face. "You like it here, don't you?"

It would've been enjoyable, she supposed, but the stars formed constellations she didn't know and the ocean spanned out forever and ever and ever, reminding her just how stuck she was on the soil of the island she had grudgingly accepted as her home.

"Yeah, I guess..."

"The stars," Felix said matter-of-factly, studying her with an odd look in his eyes. The flames flickered against his pupils, making them look like hot coals. "I thought you liked them."

Immediately, Adi felt like she'd disappointed them. They were only trying to make her happy, right? Doing her best to sound upbeat, she said, "I do! At least, I did back home. But these ones are different than the ones I knew on Earth."

"So change them," Slightly said.

"Excuse me?" she asked, perplexed. "How do you propose I do that?"

"Adi, you can teleport and make magical fire, but believing the sky to be different makes you think twice?" Max snorted. "Pan can control the weather and time of day. We think you can change the sky if you believe you can."

Her jaw nearly dropped. "That's why you brought me here?" Something warm bloomed in her stomach – not like fire, but comfortable, content, something she wished she felt more often.

Felix lifted a shoulder in a shrug. "You're pretty powerful. Why not try?"

Well aware of their eyes on her as she shut hers, Adi did her best concentrate despite the pressure they had placed on her shoulders. She pictured the midnight sky back from her birthday in Storybrooke, right before she discovered the coin.

Her eyes fluttered open as the heavens shifted like a planetarium: the domed projector screen swiveled until she was looking at the mythical characters she knew so well.

With her mouth half open in shock and awe, she barely noticed all three of her friends had sat down on the patchy grass and were waiting for her to say something.

"Don't they have stories?" Slightly screwed up his face a little, as if searching for an extremely distant memory that was just out of reach. "I lived in the Land Without Magic before, but...I can't remember."

"Yeah," Adi replied, still breathless. Her eyes landed on the telltale seven stars of the Big Dipper, and, realizing they were expectantly waiting for her to elaborate, she pointed it out and began to explain.

"That's Ursa Major, the bear, but since the entire constellation is so faint, most people just know the Big Dipper, a piece of it. It's called an asterism. The Native Americans believed that hunters chased after the bear for years and years until finally, it grew tired and thought it'd escape to the sky to be free of the chase. But the hunters only followed him into the sky, and now it circles the North Star year after year; and they haven't caught him yet."

"That's so cool!" Max's dark eyes reflected the stars back up toward the sky. "What else?"

The sky moved once more, 180 degrees to the left, displaying a stunning view of Adi's personal favorite, Orion, across the heavens.

"That's Orion - this amazing hunter in Greek myths. He used a sword and knives and a bow and all these different weapons, but the gods became angry with the arrogance he developed and set a scorpion on him. When he died, they placed him among the stars."

"He sounds like you," Felix replied, scanning the celestial being with an attention she had barely ever seen him give anything.

"Hopefully no one sets a scorpion on me," she said dryly.

Then she showed them Scorpius, followed by their zodiac constellations: Aquarius for Max, Gemini for Slightly, Leo for Felix. She left the sky centered on the last one and they sat there quietly for a little, soaking in the peace of the moment.

"So was all this so you guys could get an astronomy lesson?"

Somehow, she couldn't picture them getting too excited about space the way she did.

"You looked stressed," Max admitted. "And Felix knows you like the stars. Besides, I was curious. This stuff is interesting."

Adi hummed in reply, leaning back on her hands. This was the calm before the storm, the peace before the war – because they knew as well as she did that the one to save the island would be arriving soon, shattering everything they thought they knew to pieces.

But, like she thought earlier, she was ready for it. After all, if anyone knew about challenges, it was her.

For now, though, as she smiled and laughed with the friends she loved more than anything, she felt happier than she ever remembered.

And she would take on anything that attempted to threaten that happiness the same way she took on everything else: with a little bit of fire, a few well-aimed arrows, the heart to kill, and the will to fight.

* * *

 **END OF PART TWO.**


	16. Something Like Fire

**3.16 | Something Like Fire**

"Now we've crossed a fine line;  
sharpen my knife  
and point to the sky  
and blame it on my dark side."  
Dark Side - [SEBELL]

* * *

IF ADI HAD been told a month ago that she was going to be assisting Peter Pan with kidnapping, she would've never believed it.

But times had changed - ironic, for a place that technically had no time to begin with. The rough outlines of months and years were only the island's occupants deluding themselves into believing Neverland was the same as any other.

It wasn't. Not when the three with the most authority on the island were currently having a meeting to determine exactly how they were going to go about gaining the trust of some eleven-year-old that, assuming he was easily swayed and naïve, would be the one to save over twenty lives - and his own.

"Why do _I_ have to do it?" Adi groaned for the umpteenth time. Her feet were propped up on the table in Pan's room, her bow in her lap. As she spoke, she toyed absently with it, intertwining her words with the off-key note of her bowstring's _twang_.

Across the room, Felix rolled his eyes. The gesture was justified, considering that she hadn't stopped complaining since Pan informed her of the plan, but she still resented it. "We already told you."

"Girls are more trustworthy," Pan continued, sounding annoyed from his spot atop his haphazardly made bed. "And you look a lot more innocent than either of us."

She ground her teeth and had to suppress the irritated glare she was seconds away from giving him. As a fighter, a pirate, a wielder of magic, she wanted to strike fear in everyone she came across, not comfort them and make them feel safe.

"It doesn't even have to be one of us." She motioned between the three of them: her in the corner, Felix against the wall, Pan on the bed. "Have you met Slightly? The kid's nice as hell - he'd be great at it."

"He's not a girl," Pan said shortly.

"That's sexist."

Felix snorted. "Back to more important things," he said, ignoring Adi's indignant sputtering. "You want us to dispose of the two that are bringing him?"

"Yes; they'll only get in the –" Pan abruptly stood, looking like he'd been shocked as the color drained from his face. "Gather the boys. Someone's arrived."

"Them?" Felix asked, standing up straight as well. "Already?"

"Faster than I'd predicted, but no matter."

The second in command nodded, striding out the door and pausing only to wish Adi luck. Before she could even tell him the same, he had already left, leaving Pan alone with her.

"Get up," Pan commanded. "You need to change."

Adi slid her feet off of the table and glanced down at her outfit as she stood, frowning. "What's wrong with this?" The pants were easy to move in, the sneakers easy to run in, the loose blue shirt easy to fight in. Practical.

"You don't exactly look like a runaway."

"Fine, then what do you suggest I wear?"

He didn't respond except to wave his hand over her, encasing her in a jade fog. Accidentally, Adi breathed in some of the fumes, and was choking on them by the time the magic faded.

"A warning would've been nice."

When she fully regained her breath, she was able to examine what he'd clothed her in: tattered green shirt, tight brown pants, tall black boots, pale emerald scarf. She looked undeniably like Pan, minus the leather wrist cuffs.

However, there was one problem - everything was in perfect condition. Adi took one of the daggers sitting on the table to her left and began tearing at the earth-toned fabrics, like branches had caught at her arms as she sprinted through the forest and evaded Lost Ones.

"I'm not a very good actress, you know."

Yet again, Pan didn't answer as he hooked a vial on a cable around her neck and pulled her hair and scarf out from underneath. Raising an eyebrow, Adi lifted it with one finger by the chain and studied the contents of the glass: dull, grey dirt.

"Pixie dust," he clarified, humming as he stepped back to study her. "Your hair isn't messy enough."

That was debatable. Because her hair was curly, Adi never brushed it - the only time it became detangled was when she used magic to 'shower.'

She raised a hand to it and cringed. "I beg to differ."

But he didn't listen. Another cloud of magic, and Adi found he had styled it the way she used to as Fallon: the front pieces braided and tied back out of her eyes. Like a crown. But it was tangled, entwined with a few haphazard twigs and leaves.

A chuckle tipped the edge of her mouth up. "Am I good now?" Stepping back, she raised her arms and spun around overdramatically to allow him another glance over her to make sure she fit the role.

"You make a believable fugitive."

As a last minute preparation, Adi pulled her hood over her head. "Alright, where do I go?"

Pan considered it for a minute as he mulled over the map she knew he had filed away inside his mind. "He's just southwest of camp, heading toward us right now, near the fork in the path that diverges between here and the cliff. Are you sure you remember what to do?"

"Losing your faith in me now? Bad timing," Adi said dryly before disappearing on the spot.

She materialized a little ahead of where Pan had told her, concealing herself in the bushes. Right in front of her, a gnarled tree root jutted out of the ground – the perfect place for a panicking traveler to slip up in his fallible escape plan.

As she thought this, the boy sprinted into view, panting; the shouts of the Lost Boys were beginning to catch up with him, and he kept looking behind to check that they hadn't reached him yet. Just as Adi had guessed, he tripped and fell exactly where she'd predicted.

Seizing the opportunity, she caught his arm mid-fall and yanked him through the bushes to her hiding place. The moment they slipped back behind the branches, the boys ran by in a rush of calls, of torches, of heavy footsteps.

Once the last disappeared at the crossroads ahead, Adi pulled her hood down, sure to make herself look truly concerned for this kid's safety.

Then it hit her.

She _knew_ him.

Granted, it had been three or four years since she had last seen him, but his face was a memorable one, and he hadn't changed too much.

Henry Mills, the mayor of Storybrooke's son, had the heart of the Truest Believer. He was the one she had to take. The one she had to help manipulate.

The one she used to pass on the street while avoiding eye contact. The one she could feel looking at her when she sat by herself in Granny's diner. The one who watched her not with confusion or disgust, but with curiosity.

The kid might've been around six or seven when she disappeared, but she looked exactly the same save for the hair and clothes. In short, she was utterly screwed.

"Thanks." He was about eleven or twelve by now, with flushed freckled cheeks and a disheveled mop of brown hair. Outfitted in a coat, scarf, and long pants, she didn't doubt he was already sweating, even in the night's chill.

Apparently, she wasn't as screwed as she thought. He did squint his eyes a little, scrutinizing her, like he detected a note of familiarity, but seemed to dismiss it when he remembered where he was and the trouble he was in. Then again, when she really considered it, they had only ever seen each other at a distance, and he was young. (She barely remembered last week, let alone the memories she'd made when she was six. They were blurry at best). It was still enough to give him pause, still enough to make her fear for the safety of the plan, but not enough for immediate recognition.

"I'm here to help anyone who needs it." Adi had to force the sarcasm - and slight nervousness - out of her tone. This was too important to mess up; she had to sound honest and honorable, or lives would be lost. "Pan and his forces know about everything that happens on this island - we have to be careful. I'm...Dawn."

For half a second, she considered giving him her name. But she switched it out for her middle when she remembered that Henry knew her by Adi, not anything else. Had he heard that name, he undoubtedly would've recognized her right then and there.

He might have a vague memory of Storybrooke Adi, but she had changed, and he hadn't seen her for a good five or so years. Memories only deteriorate with time, and a name he didn't recognize wouldn't dredge up any inkling of the girl he used to see around town.

Besides, names made people more humane, so failing to give him one would've made him more likely to ditch her. Her middle name was better than nothing.

Henry seemed satisfied with the name, but still looked confused. "I thought there weren't any girls here. There was this story -"

"He _doesn't_ like girls," she interrupted calmly. "Why do you think I'm running, too?" As she spoke, she drew her knife and freed him from the plastic zip tie that bound his wrists together.

Now unrestrained, Henry rubbed the red indents they'd pressed into his skin and sucked in a sharp breath. "But how did you escape? What happened?"

The kid had a lot of questions - too many. Adi had to resist the urge to shoot back something about saving it until after they had 'escaped' the Lost Boys.

 _Honestly, shouldn't it be common sense to save the interrogations for when you're not fighting for your life?_

"We don't have time for questions," she deflected. "We need to keep moving. They'll circle back around soon when they don't find either of us. Are you okay to keep going?"

When he nodded, Adi pulled him gently up by the elbow and the two broke into a run. True to her word, the boys caught onto their detour and sprinted behind them. Though they weren't in sight, it was safe to say they were gaining faster than she had bargained for.

The archer and the Truest Believer moved in silence, save for their heavy footfalls against loose branches and the pants escaping their lips. She tugged him to the side, behind a tree, where they finally stopped and allowed the Lost Boys to rush past them once again.

"I think we lost them," she said once the noise faded, attempting to ignore the irony.

"Okay," Henry gasped for air. "Can we stop for a minute?"

Adi nodded without a word and he sat on a tree stump to regain his breath and bearings. She was surprised he'd been able to hold it together this long. Who knows what she would've done if this crazy _Lord of the Flies_ group of teenagers started vying to kill her from the moment she arrived.

"Did the shadow take you too?" Adi asked, pretending to study Henry's slackened posture with a hint of concern and mild interest.

"No, I was kidnapped by some people who work for something called the 'home office,' Greg and Tamara. I don't know what happened to them, though."

"I'm sorry." She tried to sound sympathetic. "If Pan sent for you, he wants you. And if he wants you, he _will_ get you."

"My family's going to come rescue me. Maybe you could come with us," he replied, smiling for the first time as his eyes glimmered with hope.

 _God, I hope they don't come. That'll make this way harder than it needs to be._

Shaking her head, she sighed. "That's what I thought, but it's been years, and I'm still here."

He kept grinning. "My family's different. We always find each other."

"That's a nice hope to have, kid, but this is reality. You'd better hope they don't come. Who knows what Pan would do to them." She didn't have to feign the shudder that shook her shoulders.

"It's gonna be okay, I promise." Though Adi was much taller, Henry rose and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Don't lose hope. All we need is time. Is there somewhere we can hide?"

She thought it over. "The Echo Caves. But they're far - very far."

Henry opened his mouth, but something seemed to occur to him before he could say his first thought. "Why does Pan want you?"

There was no need for Adi to make up some excuse about how she had betrayed Pan and the boys' trust (come to think of it, it wouldn't actually be a lie), because the sounds of footsteps had returned in the midst of their conversation, and neither had noticed until they were far too close for comfort.

Her eyes widened - this time, she wasn't acting. "Run."

The two shot into motion, crashing through branches with the Lost Boys hot on their trails, who were now alerted by the noise emanating from their chosen path. Unbeknownst to Henry, Adi was leading them straight to possible death.

"They're close!" Henry warned, as if she hadn't heard them herself. She had to resist the urge to roll her eyes.

"We're almost there! Follow me." They hung a left, hesitating for a moment - long enough for a single arrow to whistle toward them and skim Adi's bare forearm before it nailed the tree a foot away from her.

She suppressed a small cry of pain and a long string of curses toward Max and his awful archery skills. They couldn't have let Ace do it? Or someone who didn't lose twelve arrows to the woods every time they practiced?

"They cut us off - this way."

This time, Henry took the front and led them along Adi's chosen path once more. They would've been fine, but the trees abruptly cut off to reveal a large archway of rocks that led out to the eastern cliff.

Henry didn't know that. His momentum was so much that he would've slipped down into the abyss had Adi not wrenched his arm back at the last second and pulled him to safety.

(Well, safety was a bit of a subjective term).

Now that they had a second to pause, Adi ripped the scarf from around her neck, suddenly grateful Pan had given it to her, and pressed it to the wound on her arm as she hissed in pain. There was no way to heal it without giving away her magic. She was just glad they hadn't used dreamshade on her.

"Are you alright?" Henry asked, breathless, as he looked desperately for an escape that was not there.

When she nodded and muttered a low 'yes,' he continued with the onslaught of questions. "Is there another way to the caves?"

Adi shook her head, hopeless. "No. We're done for."

Without warning, Henry's eyes locked on her neck. Before she could ask, he had already reached up. She flinched back, fully prepared to punch him in the face in case he was going for her windpipe, but he only lifted the vial around her neck and studied it. Even in the moonlight, it still looked like a tube of old dirt.

"What's this?"

"Pixie dust. I thought I'd be able to use it to escape, but it doesn't work," Adi spat bitterly. "Maybe if I give it to them, they'll let us live."

"So you want to just give up?" Henry demanded.

In any other circumstance, she would've been the one saying that, the one yelling that they had to keep going. But she wasn't currently herself, so to speak, and had to bite back her agreement for the sake of the act. Or, as Pan called it, the game.

Behind them, the jeers and shouts of the group grew louder, amplifying against the rocks. She feigned terror and prayed Felix was intelligent enough to make them wait until her part of the plan had been seen through. This couldn't be messed up - the fate of the island, the fate of their lives was at stake.

"We don't have a choice - they'll catch up any second. This is it, kid."

Henry's eyes lit up. "No. It's our way out." He tugged the dust from her neck and the weak cord snapped under the pressure. A sting of pain pricked the back of her neck, but she paid it no attention between the bleeding, more important wound on her arm and the bold (and likely insane) kid in front of her.

"What the hell are you doing?" Adi hissed as Henry pulled her further away from the cliff's edge. The boys were close. Too close. "It doesn't work!"

"That's because you have to believe."

"I definitely do _not_ believe."

"Do you trust me?"

"Not really."

As the words left her lips, multiple cries of victory and things along the lines of 'we've got you now!' rang out. For a moment, Henry froze.

Adi, however, did not. She pushed him to the side and brandished her knife at them. Felix, the frontrunner of the group, swung his club in front of him with something akin to amusement in his gunmetal eyes.

"I'd watch it if I were you, girl. Give us the boy."

Henry tugged at Adi's other arm, but she ignored him and leveled the dagger with Felix's chin. "You want another scar, pretty boy? I'd think one is enough."

Vaguely aware of the kid uncapping the vial and grasping her right wrist a little tighter, Adi made a split second decision to fling the knife directly at Felix's face. Alarm flitted across his features; he ducked, and she took the opportunity to send a well-place knee to his crotch.

Completely unfair, she knew, but they had a job to do.

"I hope you believe enough for the both of us, kid." This time, the fear was legitimate. It wasn't her general inclination to go cliff-diving with only an eleven-year-old and some pixie dust for safety gear.

Henry pulled her into a run, choosing death by water over death by Lost Boy, and they leapt from the cliff together into the still night air.

For one heart-stopping moment, they fell. Adi's scream caught in her throat, disappearing when the dust floated from the bottle, shimmering emerald, covering the two in a twinkling glow. A few rogue arrows whistled past them but fell short and dropped into the sea below.

Adi almost laughed when she realized exactly what had happened: in the span of three minutes, she had threatened her best friend's life and then jumped off of a cliff with a kid she'd only just met.

Said kid had a surprisingly firm grip on her shirtsleeve as they flew, shaky and unsteady beneath the stars. Every single part of her was demanding for her to marvel at the beauty of the heavens from up here, but she reminded herself that she couldn't. There was a job to do.

They were unrestrained, free, and she found her fear of plummeting into the water fading with each inch of the chasm they cleared. But they didn't stop there - she gently led him north over the western half, toward where a gap in the trees would make the perfect place to land.

The dust began to run dry far too quickly for Adi's liking. She pointed to the break in the foliage while they descended; Henry understood and guided them down with surprising skill for someone who had never flown in his entire life.

Unceremoniously, they crashed through the leaves and branches with an equally rough landing. He rolled forward in a somersault while she hit the dirt with an involuntary 'ooph' and a considerable knock to the head.

They both stood, and Adi dropped all signs of her act now that she had played her part. That sick gleam of malice Pan always wore shone in her eyes, replacing the false air of desperation she'd surrounded herself with.

"See, if you believe, anything is possible." He smiled up at her like they were old friends. Too naive, too trusting. His - all heroes' - downfall.

Adi straightened her shoulders. "You couldn't be more right, Henry."

It took a second to register. Henry froze, the grin slowly sliding off his face, and he backed up as fear sparked in his hazel irises. "How'd you know my name?"

"You tell me," she replied ominously with a slick smirk. "Let's make it a game. A puzzle to solve."

"You lied to me - you work for Pan!" he accused. "He isn't after you...you're helping him!"

At this, she laughed. "Not exactly how I'd put it, Henry. I work _with_ him, not for him. Technicalities." She paused for effect, then called over her shoulder without tearing her gaze from the boy. "Pan, we have a guest!"

"And who might it be, Adeline?" His voice crescendoed as he stepped closer until he stood beside her, left hand on the dagger hooked into his belt, right on her shoulder.

Henry sucked in a sharp breath in one moment and then was mouthing her name in the next as it seemed to hit him like a brick to the stomach: that this girl was the same person he used to see around Storybrooke but was now on the side of the enemy, working against him.

The initial fear she'd had at being recognized was worth it when she saw the truth dawning on him.

Adi turned to look at Pan, something like fire dancing victoriously in her eyes.

Even dumbfounded, caught off guard, and probably fearing for his life, Henry still found the courage to ask his multitude of questions. "But you told Greg and Tamara that magic was bad. You wanted to help them destroy it - why?"

Pan leaned back on his heels, reveling in the drug of Henry's panic. "Because we need their help. And it is so much easier to get people to hate something than it is to believe."

"Why did you bring me here? What do you want with me?" Though he attempted to look brave, neither missed the waver in his voice.

"For quite some time, I've sought something extremely important," Pan began, moving soundlessly like a shadow through the clearing and toward a tree at the edge of the jungle. "Something more elusive than the greatest of all mysteries: the heart of the Truest Believer. And when you took that pixie dust, Henry, jumped off that cliff." Reaching forward, he knocked on one of the lower roots of the tree closest to him. The signal. "I knew it was you. You are the lucky owner of that very special heart. And now? You - and it - are mine."

A dangerous possessiveness edged into his words and shot chills down even Adi's spine. Pan grinned - if possible - broader than before as he unsheathed his knife and rejoined her in front of the Truest Believer.

"C'mon, boys!" Pan's shout cut into the cool night air like the blade he raised to catch the dim moonlight. As the remainder of the boys - that is, the ones who hadn't been chasing Henry and Adi - crawled from their various hiding places within the trees, he lowered the point toward Henry's chest.

The Lost Boys, their leader, and lone Lost Girl ringed around the Believer in a lethal circle. Each person was armed with a different caliber of weapon, hoods pulled up to shroud their faces in shadow while they leered down at him.

A cruel satisfaction shot through Adi, hot and cold at the same time like dreamshade. She beamed fiercely when Henry caught her eye. The frightened innocence she'd feigned had so easily melted into something different - something worse.

If Henry so much as moved, he'd get sliced by the multitude of weapons - some poison-covered, some not - directed toward him.

Pan glanced over at Adi, who looked different in the low light of the forest. It seemed his plan to change her was working a little too well. And it seemed that whatever judgements and doubts she'd harbored about the plan were dissipating into smoke the moment she recognized that failing to secure the boy would end in destruction.

And in death.

Another heartbeat of dead silence passed before she decided to finish his sentence for him. The menacing words tasted familiar in her mouth.

"Let's play."

* * *

 **welcome to part 3! this is where the show's plotline comes into play, although i will end up breaking away from it toward the end. as always, thanks so much for reading & let me know what you think**


	17. From the Darkness

**3.17 | From the Darkness**

"There's a ghost in the mirror;  
I'm afraid more than ever.  
My feet have led me straight into my grave."  
Glass Heart Hymn - Paper Route

* * *

IT FELT LIKE forever ago that Adi's problems had been entirely centric of school: essays, homework, tests, the low D she'd been consecutively earning in Calculus.

None of it meant anything anymore. Realizing she was a fairy tale character while residing on a fictional island had a strange way of putting things in perspective for her.

It was a comforting thought, but as Adi studied her reflection in the mirror, she understood the implications of leaving that life behind. She understood that lives were at risk. She understood the weight of the situation, a scenario she could've only dreamed of in Storybrooke.

Her reflection looked displeased. The clothes Pan had given her were a welcome change, but something about the way they mirrored his set her off. She didn't want to look like Peter Pan. She wanted to look like Adi Morris.

Chewing on her lip, she considered this, and magically changed the green and brown of her clothing so that she was in an all-black ensemble. A mix of old and new: dark for the pirate she used to be, styled like the Lost Girl she had become.

It felt right, in a sort of poetic sense. She left her hair as it was, half braided up, and stood, giving herself one full survey in the mirror with a decisive nod before making it disappear.

Then she collected her set of silver arrows from the bed and slung them over her shoulder, followed quickly by the bow.

She descended the ladder after one final glance around her and Pan's room.

The boys were standing around the fire, casual as usual with their knives and rowdy conversations; but Henry was alone and visibly uncomfortable at the edge of camp. He sat on one of the logs they rarely used, but he seemed to have claimed it as his. Confusion tainted his soft features, as well as a sort of discontent with the situation as a whole.

It was probable that, like Adi, he had expected something different than this. When she had first arrived, the most jarring thing to realize was that the innocent, heroic Peter Pan was actually a ruthless boy with a gang of wild teenagers rallying behind him like soldiers.

Before Adi could turn around to attempt to find either Pan or Felix, they had both already found her.

"Adi, I – you changed your clothes." Pan stared at her with narrowed eyes.

"Yes," she answered with a wry grin. "You were going to ask me something?"

It took a second for him to recover. "We've discovered a few complications to the plan."

"Complications," she repeated, grasping at her bow.

Felix took that at his cue to chime in. "Some of Henry's family came after him. They're on the island right now, trying to track him so they can bring him home."

That was bad. Extremely bad. On a scale of tolerable to terrible, it ranked undeniably abhorrent.

"Who?" Adi asked, looking between their faces while attempting to control the panic threatening to flash across hers. "Are they an actual threat, or can I go shoot them and we can get on with this?"

"Now, Adeline, where's the fun in that?" Pan said with a lazy smile. "They're only adding more players into the game."

It was possible that he'd known they were coming from the beginning - why else would he be so calm? Something about the easy demeanor he carried about himself despite everything made her want to punch him in the face.

"Where's the fun in _dying_?" she demanded. "I don't know about you, but I'd rather not lose everything we worked for just because you underestimated his family."

"Relax," Felix interjected. "I thought you loved challenges."

Adi swallowed thickly. She did, but not when the lives of her and her best friends hung in the balance. As long as overconfidence didn't scramble the plan, it would be fine; Peter Pan never failed, right?

"I do."

Pan smiled. "Then the only issue lies in who the members of this group to save Henry are. I daresay you'll be happy to see half of them."

This gave her pause, one long enough for dread to pool in the pit of her stomach. "Who are they?"

"The Dark One, Henry's grandfather. The Evil Queen Regina, his mother. Snow White and Prince Charming, his grandparents. Emma Swan, his other mother." He hesitated when he saw the disgruntled expression on her face, but finished despite it. "And your brother."

Adi's entire world stuttered to a screeching halt, until the reeling of her brain decelerated into slow motion. Her _brother_ , the one she despised most of her entire family, was invading her home - alongside the queen who had ruined her life, and the thief who inadvertently helped.

A moment passed in which she had to recollect herself and force the shock from her face. In order to be taken seriously, she could not allow herself the luxury of fear.

"So what does this mean for us?" she finally questioned, chewing on the inside of her cheek as she shifted her weight. "Do we need a new plan?"

"Not exactly," Pan said, which only confirmed her theory that he had been expecting this the whole time and conveniently forgotten to tell her. "But you and I are going to visit Emma to give her a map."

"A map," repeated Adi, deadpan. She locked gazes with Felix. "Does this sound stupid to you, too?"

"The map will force Emma to realize she's lost, kind of like you," Felix explained. Clearly, he had been informed of everything before Adi, which only increased her anger. "Then, it'll lead her right to us."

"That isn't a good plan."

"I think we have a good idea of what's actually going to happen. They're rather predictable, which makes all of this easier," Pan cut in. "Felix is going to stay here with Henry and keep everything in order while we're gone."

The matter-of-fact way with which he presented the plan did not match the doubt swimming through Adi's mind. All their work would be for nothing if they lost the boy to this band of heroes.

But right then and there, Adi resigned to keep her mouth shut. If Pan and Felix were confident that they knew what they were doing, who was she to deny them their optimism?

When they failed, then they would see how much of a mistake it was to leave her in the dark.

"I'm going to leave first," he interrupted her train of thought. "Wait about a minute before you follow." Pan pulled a map from thin air and pointed to a seemingly random location in the forest at the edge of the island, right near where the beach met the jungle. "You'll find us here."

He handed her the parchment and relayed a shortened version of the strategy to her.

Before Adi could make any sound of protest or confusion, he had disappeared. She let out a frustrated groan and pulled the bow off her shoulder.

Felix eyed her warily as she did so, like he was afraid she was going to point the bow at him. It wasn't difficult for him to see she was angry, she was sure, but she would leave it. He and Pan would regret this strategy later.

"Do you have any idea what you're doing?" he asked her.

"No," she replied with a shrug. "But I'm sure I'll figure it out eventually."

That seemed to appease him, because he turned away and back to the boys - and Henry - without so much as a goodbye, in true Felix fashion.

After Adi estimated what felt like a minute, she transported herself to the general area Pan had pointed out on the map.

When she arrived, she was surrounded only by trees. The air was filled with sounds of exaggerated crying, sobs and sniffles playing on repeat like a cheap record. They were a tool Pan devised to weaken the resolve of the newcomers, though how they did so was a mystery to her.

A feminine voice was emanating from somewhere off to her left, so Adi strung an arrow and quietly crept toward where it sounded like it was coming from.

A few steps later, she found herself standing behind an unknown woman with a sword drawn at Pan's neck. Even pushed up against a tree with a blade jabbed into his throat, the boy king looked utterly relaxed.

Silent, Adi tugged back her bowstring.

Pan caught sight of her over the woman's - Emma, she presumed - shoulder, and his confident smirk broadened.

"You've got fire," he drawled, looking down at Emma almost lazily. "I like fire. But not on you."

"Where is my son?" Emma demanded, anger and a hint of desperation edging into her words.

He rolled his eyes. "Henry's still alive, if that's what you're worried about."

She didn't settle for the minimal facts. "Why the hell'd you take him?" Her voice lowered to a threatening whisper at which Adi nearly laughed; as if this tiny woman could take either of them in a fight.

"He's a very special boy, Emma."

"I _know,_ " she said, irritated. "That doesn't answer my question. What do you want with him?"

"We came here to see who we were up against. The _Savior_ ," Pan replied theatrically as his eyes glinted in the dim moonlight, unfazed by the blade pressing closer against his skin. "Gotta say, I'm not disappointed."

Emma didn't miss it, and she stiffened. "We?"

Just as Pan had predicted - or possibly had known for a fact - Henry's family had only known of _him_ as a threat, not her.

"We," Adi repeated as she leveled the drawn arrow with the back of Emma's skull. "I'd appreciate it if you didn't slit his throat, thanks very much."

Slowly, as if afraid sudden movements would get her gutted, Emma retracted the blade and turned to face Adi - or rather, the arrow inches from her face. "Who the hell are you?"

She didn't falter, continuing to grin, but she did let the bow fall so the blonde could get a clear look at her face. "My name's Adi."

"And what're you here to tell me? That I'm never gonna see Henry again?"

"On the contrary, Emma," Adi countered as she produced the map Pan had given her and cast a violet spell over it. "We want to help you find him."

"That map," Pan cut in, causing Emma's suspicious gaze and deadly sword to fall back to him. Adi's body tensed at the blade pointed at his chest once more. She was seconds away from shooting, but he shot her a glare that told her to wait. "Will lead you straight to your son."

"If this is some kind of trap -" Emma began to threaten as she looked from Adi to Pan and then back again.

He laughed. "I may not be the most well-behaved boy on the island, but I always keep my promises. The path to finding Henry _is_ on that parchment."

The blonde lowered her blade but remained on edge. "Why are you giving it to me?"

"It's more of a question of _how_ you find Henry than if you do. You're the only one who can." Adi still patiently held the parchment out to Emma, who eyed it like the paper would explode the moment she touched it.

Grudgingly, she accepted it and unfolded it to reveal an empty page.

Rolling her eyes, Emma looked back up at Adi's haughty face. "It's blank."

"You'll only be able to read that map once you stop denying who you really are," Pan told her.

Emma looked at him in disbelief, but he disappeared on the spot.

"Good luck, Emma," Adi said with a smirk. "You'll need it."

Then she, too, was gone, leaving the Savior alone with an empty map and the air heavy with the false cries Pan had conjured to trick her.

* * *

In the middle of Henry's family's camp, sitting on a rock and holding a blank sheet of parchment an arm's length in front of her was none other than the Savior, Emma Swan. Her brow was drawn, mouth half open as she attempted to decode exactly what it was Pan and Adi wanted her to do.

Stop denying who she was? In her opinion, Emma had an excellent sense of identity.

"They told me I have to stop denying who I really am," she said aloud without daring to look up from the paper, as if she was afraid the answer would flit across the map while her attention was elsewhere. "Whatever the hell that means."

Hook raised an eyebrow. "They?"

"Pan and this girl. Said her name was Adi. Does that ring a bell for any of you?" Emma said when she finally glanced up.

Regina visibly started. "I know her. She used to live in Storybrooke, but she disappeared one day and we never figured out where she went."

"Who was she?" Charming chimed in, stepping into the circle the group had begun to make around her daughter.

The queen's eyes shifted from the princess to the pirate. She crossed her arms over her chest. "Her name was Fallon Jones."

"Fallon? My sister is working with Pan?" Killian stared at both of Henry's mothers, looking like he'd been punched in the stomach. "Now?"

"That's what we just established," Regina replied, impatient. "It doesn't matter."

"Of course it matters," he shot back, a strange look caught between confusion and alarm and severe pain in his eyes. "Never mind the fact that we don't even know how or when she got here or how she's even still alive, but she's deadly - vengeful, murderous, and extremely easily angered. I don't doubt Pan has taught her how to use her magic. That means she's as viable a threat as the boy."

Now that Emma thought about it, she did see the similarities between the two: same blue eyes and dark hair, confident demeanor that verged on arrogance, same insolent attitude. "She was a second away from shooting me in the head with an arrow, so yeah, I'd have to agree with that."

"But when Regina sent her after me, she couldn't bring herself to kill me. She ran," Snow said, mulling over the words like speaking slowly would solve the confusion. "Why was she so quick to threaten your life? Was it a bluff?"

Killian took a swig of his rum. "She must have a reason. Pan probably brainwashed her into believing she has a motive to hate every single one of us. Even David, who she's never even met. That's why we need to be careful."

"Could we maybe talk to her?" Charming asked the group at large. "Getting her on our side would increase our shot at surviving and finding Henry."

"Once Fallon believes something, she refuses to change her mind. But perhaps I - we - could get her to fight on our side."

Before the prince could say anything else, Regina cut in. "Back to the issue at hand. What the hell are we going to do about this map?"

Sighing, Hook ran a hand over his face and took another sip from his flask. "He so likes his games."

"What game? There's nothing there." She motioned, frustrated, at the map.

"If Fa - Adi said there's a map on the parchment, then there is."

"Great," Emma said, sarcasm biting into her words. "So I stop denying who I really am, then we'll be able to read this thing." She rested her head in her hands, huffing a large, dramatic sigh.

"How do we know Pan and Adi won't use this to lead us straight into a trap?" Regina demanded, distrustful as usual.

"They don't need to," Killian stated. "This whole island's their bloody trap."

Emma knew he was right. From the way the two held themselves, it was clear they had unshakable confidence in their ability to keep her son away from her. It was also clear that they enjoyed the process of keeping him from her more than anything else.

Glaring at the map, she tuned out the others and willed the paper to show the way to Henry. Still, it remained blank, taunting her. Emma muttered curses under her breath, wishing her son was by her side now more than ever.

* * *

"Come on, Slightly, you can do better than that!" Adi taunted as she dodged his blade and knocked it aside with her own.

Slightly panted, close to surrender. In one last valiant attempt to overpower her, her thrust forward toward her left shoulder, but she met his sword with her knife and used the force of his strike to shove him to the side.

"Alright, I give up," he relented, dropping his sword and raising his hands up in a defensive manner. "I miss the days when I could beat you without breaking a sweat."

She responded with a self-satisfied grin and bent down to pick up his discarded weapon. She handed it to him, handle-first, and was about to reply when a loud voice cut their conversation short.

"Boys, we need to move," Pan called aloud, and almost instantly the camp fell silent. Henry listened with a suspicious yet rapt attention. "We have business to attend to elsewhere." He stepped off the rock he'd stood on to make the announcement, speaking cryptically so the Truest Believer didn't understand what exactly he was getting at. "We leave in two minutes."

 _Elsewhere_ seemed to hold some significance to them, because they shot into motion, loading weapons and dipping them in dreamshade.

Adi, still a little confused, busied herself with making sure all of her arrows were properly sharpened - they'd already been infused with poison - and that her daggers were present and dreamshade-free.

Pan met with her a minute later, leaving behind a heavily sleeping Henry against the log he'd lay claim to.

"Sleeping spell," he clarified, following her gaze to the boy. "It should last long enough for what we need to do."

"And what is that?" she dared to ask.

"The map you gave Emma - they put a tracking spell on it instead of unlocking it the correct way. They cheated. We have to teach them a lesson."

"Cheaters never win," Adi said with a smile.

"I have a special task for you." He leaned forward to hiss it in her ear, like it was a secret even she wasn't allowed to know.

Her eyes glittered. "It would be my pleasure."

Pan returned the expression, and then raised his voice so he could be heard over the boys' chatter and the clamor of their weapons. "It's not far from here - you know where it is. Head west, and once you reach it, surround the area."

Felix nodded and swept into the forest with the boys hot on his heels. Pan, however, didn't move, so neither did Adi.

With a wave of his hand, he shifted his tattered green and brown clothes into an exact replica of Henry's outfit: heavy wool jacket atop a red plaid shirt and jeans. Adi scrunched her nose at how strange he looked, but held her tongue.

"Are you ready?" he asked. She nodded and he reached out to grasp her shoulder so they could teleport together.

They materialized at the top of a hill, before a small valley that Pan had filled with haphazard piles of junk to give it the illusion of inhabitance. Clothes hung on lines as if drying, chairs wound in a circle around the dying embers of a fire. If she didn't know better, Adi might've believed the ruse.

The boys were close, judging by the whispers of their cloaks against the ground, the unsynchronized steps of their heavy boots on the dirt.

Pan told them to hide.

Adi pressed her back against the tree nearest to him, who didn't bother to take cover and instead stood with his back to the rest of the area.

She drew an arrow, nocking it and studying the black veins of poison shooting through the sleek silver metal. It was a combination of deadly and beautiful, dangerous and alluring.

However, at the distinct sound of multiple pairs of footsteps and the murmur of a female voice she couldn't quite make out, she stilled.

"Henry!"

Pan revolved on the spot with a smug grin. "Hi, Emma."

Though she couldn't see, Adi could visualize the surprise on her face and had to bite back a snort.

"Where the hell is Henry?"

"You broke the rules." He ignored her desperation and began pacing further up the hill as he spoke. "That's not fair. 'Bad form.'" He mocked Killian. "I expected more from you, Captain."

Adi's blood roared in her ears as she heard her brother's voice for the first time in what felt like centuries. He sounded precisely the same. "Aye, and you'll get it."

"Give Henry to me," Emma commanded, as if Pan would suddenly listen to her simply because she asked.

"Sorry, can't," Pan replied arrogantly as he stopped walking. "Don't you know? Cheaters never win."

And all hell broke loose.

At once, the boys came forward from their hiding places, shouting wildly with brandished weapons. It was a mass of chaos, a hazardous crowd of organized disorder.

Adi stepped out into plain view and aimed the bow directly at the group of adults, though only Snow White took notice. The rest were distracted by the other boys, who had begun to sprint down the hill. A few even surfaced from the jungle behind them.

Henry's family was surrounded.

Adi stepped beside Pan, arrow drawn, though her target kept moving. Prince Charming was swift, she'd give him that, but his downfall was the careful watch of Snow from the corner of his eye.

She shifted her aim toward the princess instead and let the arrow fly. Alarmed, Charming leapt into its line of fire, allowing it to slice through his jacket and inject the poison into his bloodstream.

That was the trouble with heroes: always selfless, always willing to take the arrow if it meant saving the one they loved. They had no sense of self-preservation.

Satisfied, Adi dropped her bow and drew her dual knives, casually making her way down to where Killian stood, dodging the badly aimed arrows that flew her way. The adults seemed to be most concerned about the poisoned arrows, but Killian watched her approach with a tension in his jaw that suggested he knew she would be a lot worse than dreamshade.

"Been a long time," Adi greeted him, swinging her daggers in a deadly arc toward his scruffy face. "Lovely to see you, _brother_."

His eyes, blue like hers, scanned over her as he stared as if unsure what to make of her. Perhaps Emma hadn't mentioned her name, and he had no idea she was still breathing. Or maybe he hadn't bridged the connection between Fallon and Adi until just then.

He took a step toward her, brow drawn as he caught one of her blades with his hook.

"I get the feeling you're lying," he replied through gritted teeth, jabbing at her waist. He managed to cut through her already torn shirt and slice the skin of her stomach, but she locked her teeth and attempted to ignore it.

"You wound me," Adi said, deadpan, sarcasm dripping off her lips like honey. Their blades met with an almighty clash, but she could see that his intention was only to disarm.

Killian was lucky that her weapon wasn't coated in dreamshade, because Adi was fighting with a carelessness that suggested her goal was not to simply disarm.

"What did Pan do to you? Why are you helping him?" he asked her through the flurry of their weapons. And there was, of course, the unspoken question of _what happened to the sister I used to know? What was it that made you cruel?_

"He showed me who I was meant to be." She looked feral as she bared her teeth at him with a steely glint in her eye. "No one will take my family from me."

As she spoke, she brought her right blade down toward his only hand, but he blocked it and shoved her away. Sparks danced along her clenched knuckles.

" _I'm_ your family."

"That isn't quite what I'd call it."

Before Killian could form a reply or attempt to disarm her again or even glare at the girl he called his sister, a shrill whistle cut through the air.

Adi flashed him one last dark grin, flung the knife in her right hand directly at him, and turned away, sprinting back to Pan's side where she shoved the remaining dagger into her belt and reclaimed her bow from the ground.

"Remember what we told you. That map will show you where Henry is only when you stop denying who you really are. I'll make sure to send him your regards."

With that, Pan turned around and the animalistic Lost Boys followed suit, running into the jungle with more whoops and yells. The flames of their torches illuminated the jungle canopy above with the dark outlines of their shadows, jagged and ephemeral in the flickering light.

Alone on the hill, Adi stood unarmed, her eyes flickering like sparks in the darkness. "I'd advise you to hurry." She raised an eyebrow at the group of adults, daring them to challenge her. "Good luck, _Savior_."


	18. Shattering of Hope

**3.18 | Shattering of Hope**

"We're all fighting growing old  
in the hopes of a few minutes more."  
Rat a Tat - Fall Out Boy

* * *

IN AGREEING TO remain on Pan's side and secure the heart of the Truest Believer, Adi was obligated to have unshakeable faith in Pan and his scheme no matter what. But the longer they put his plans into action, the more she doubted the strength of his plan.

How could they possibly anticipate every single decision a group of capable and intelligent adults would make? How did Pan think that making this into a game would in any way help them get what they so desperately needed?

Adi was also obligated to go along with whatever she was told to do so as not to interfere with the carefully strung balance of Pan's master plan. No matter what she thought of what she was told, she was determined to hold her tongue.

"We should be getting close to Pan's lair," Emma said as she unfolded the enchanted parchment for a closer look at the map. "We're going in a straight line course..."

Adi watched with amusement as the group of five attempted to navigate the strenuous Neverland landscape. By now, she was used to the mud and leaves of the jungle, as well as the paradoxical cool humidity; they, however, were not. The island was her home, not theirs, and she was fully prepared to use the familiar territory to her advantage.

They paused as Emma studied the map again. She could only stare in helpless shock as the false location of Pan's camp changed from its supposed position by the Echo Caves and instead appeared in its true place in the southeastern tip of the island.

"Son of a..." the blonde cursed under her breath. "How is it now behind us?"

"You got us lost," Regina accused with her hands on her hips.

"No, I didn't!" Emma insisted, taking a closer look at the paper. "It's the stupid map Adi gave me. It's probably defective."

The queen laughed coldly. "Her? I don't doubt it; her magic isn't anything special."

Adi took this as her cue. She stepped out of the bushes with a confident grin, startling the majority of the group. "It isn't," she said, taunting. "But it's enough to be a minor inconvenience, which, in your case, can become an extremely unfortunate issue."

"Where the hell is Henry?" Emma demanded in a half shout as she unsheathed the cutlass strapped to her back and pointed it at Adi's chest. The girl, however, was unarmed, save for her bow which was stowed harmlessly over her shoulder.

It was almost amusing to hear. How long would it take for Emma to understand that simply asking for Henry would do no good?

Adi put her hands up in a false surrender. "I came to deliver a message, not start a fight you wouldn't be able to win."

Regina's eyes narrowed as she held out a fire-filled palm. "You wanna bet, kid?"

Blue eyes glinting, Adi tilted her head to the side in a taunting manner. Raising her hand, she lit a flame equal to the queen's; sparks crackled and popped from her fingertips. "Never fight fire with fire. Everything you love will burn."

For a moment, her words hung heavy in the air like smoke until she extinguished the flames and crossed her arms over her chest.

"Is that a threat?" Regina hissed, edging forward, but Emma put a hand on her shoulder until the queen sighed and closed her hand.

"Yes, it is."

"So what's your message?" Charming pressed, albeit hesitantly.

"Simple," she replied. "Leave. Now. While you still can, and before you pose a more serious threat to our mission. We may not look it, but Pan and I are far more capable than you. You still have the chance to save yourselves. I'm willing to grant you amnesty for your invasion of my home if you leave within the hour."

"I'd die before I left my son with you," Emma said through clenched teeth.

"Was that an invitation?" Adi asked. When Emma only glared, she continued. "Don't say I didn't warn you."

She turned to leave, but was stopped when someone called her name - well, her old name.

"Fallon."

The girl in question revolved on the spot and finally looked Killian in the eyes: the same shade of cobalt as hers. "That isn't my name anymore."

"What happened to you?" he asked, taking in the harsh expression that bloomed across her pale face the moment he began speaking. "How are you still alive?"

Pain bloomed inside of her, but she laughed, a cold and sharp noise. "What happened to me?" she repeated with a shake of her head. "You left me in the queen's dungeons to die. And when her curse hit me, I forgot _everything_. I was deluded into thinking I was stupid, helpless, until I found my way out. When the curse went away, I finally remembered you and why I hate you."

When Killian continued to gape at her, she continued.

"As for why - where do I start? You're the reason Liam is dead. You let the queen take me away, and when I didn't come back, you didn't even bother to find me. You left me on my own to die."

Killian blinked. "Pan's brainwashed you, Fallon. That isn't how any of it happened."

"That isn't my name," she said again. "It doesn't matter what he's done; what matters is what you've done. Or rather, what you didn't do."

He attempted to reply, but Snow White cut him off. She seemed to realize that their dispute was pointless given that neither was going to change their mind. "Adi, why are you doing this? You're not a bad person."

"I'm not?" Adi had to choke back a snicker. "Did you miss the fact that I almost killed you? All of you? That I am currently helping to take your grandson away from you?"

" _Almost_. But you spared my life," Snow insisted. "You have to be good, somewhere in there. Otherwise, I wouldn't be standing here."

"Good is a subjective term. None of us are inherently good or evil. We do what we have to in the circumstances we are given. These are my circumstances, and I'm doing what I have to in order to survive."

There was a pause, and she debated asking what their plan was, if they even had one. It was unlikely that they would tell her, but part of her wondered if it was any better than Pan's.

"Do you love him?"

Immediately, Adi tensed, her fingers twitching toward the bow across her back. " _Excuse_ me?"

"Do you love him?" Snow repeated, this time louder and more articulately.

She'd heard the first time, but it took her a little to recover from the shock. " _Pan_? Never."

Snow shrugged, acutely aware of everyone's eyes on her, but still, she didn't let her gaze falter. "If you say so."

"Look," Adi said condescendingly. "I get that because you've found your 'true love'" – she made air quotes with an irritated expression – "or whatever, you think you're some kind of love expert. You're not. I suggest you focus on escaping the island unscathed before you keep looking into something that doesn't exist - and makes me more likely to fight you right here and now, Pan's orders be damned."

"Even if you're telling the truth, and you don't, you still fell for him. Not just fell in the romantic sense, but in the way that you listen to him. You're on his side, something the sanest of people would refuse."

"It's easy to fall. It's another measure of strength entirely to pick yourself back up and build a kingdom out of whatever low point you find yourself in."

With that, she disappeared, leaving the distinct stench of something burning in her wake.

"What was _that_?" Emma rounded on her mother. "Do you want her to kill us?"

Snow stared calmly back at her daughter. "I knew what I was talking about."

Exasperated, Regina rolled her eyes. "And you were willing to risk our lives on an assumption?"

"Yes!"

"I think we have bigger problems," Killian muttered. "Like why she's even siding with him in the first place."

"You heard her," Emma said. "She thinks you left both her and Liam to die. Her hatred is a little justified, even if it's on the wrong basis."

"What I want to know is how she got her memories back," Regina demanded of no one in particular, hands on her hips as she glared at the place where the girl in question had been moments ago. "And how she's still on his side when she knows everything he did."

"I looked for her every single day I lived," the pirate said quietly, reaching inside his coat for his rum. "It's not like I left her to die without even thinking about it. I needed her, but I was never able to get her back. She was my sister - it's not like I wanted her gone."

"She seems to think so," replied Emma. "Either way, there isn't anything we can do about it now. We need to focus on Henry first - it's why we're here. We're not leaving until we get him back."

Killian grumbled his agreement over the lip of his flask, following her as she led the way. They'd have to backtrack thanks to his sister's antics; he was beginning to question if getting her back was worth the trouble.

* * *

By the time Adi returned to the compound, her temples were pulsing and tiredness was itching at the corners of her eyes. Somehow, it felt like weeks had passed since Henry's arrival. How one person managed to brought so much distress was beyond her.

Once she saw the others gathered at the edge of camp, she painted an easy grin on her face to hide the truth. It was quickly becoming second nature to her to lie, to hide her frustration and her fury and pretend like she was at ease.

As Adi looked closer, she noted that the boys were grouped together in a ring around Felix and Henry. The former balanced an apple atop his head; the latter held a crossbow and an unsettled expression.

Everyone had joined into the repetitive taunt of " _shoot, shoot, shoot,_ " as they watched the pair with interest.

Adi stepped in line with Pan, pursing her lips. Henry was holding the bow incorrectly. Although she used a traditional bow, she at least understood the basics of operating a crossbow.

"Lift your elbow up," she advised over the chants.

Henry made no notion that he'd heard her other than to shift his arm slightly. A brief moment's hesitation followed in which the boy lined the arrow up with his target, his hands shaking.

The boys fell silent, leaving only the breeze to resonate through the air and fill the sudden quiet.

Despite the blank expression on his face, Henry's arms shook. He paused, aligned the weapon once more, and in one swift motion, whipped around to aim the weapon at Pan and press the trigger.

Adi had to bite her tongue to stop her cry of shock from vocalizing. Pan caught the bolt by the shaft, inches from his chest, sneering down at Henry. The boys cheered as their leader threw the weapon to the ground.

"Told you it was exhilarating. C'mon. I have something to show you."

It reminded her of the time she had done the same thing to him, back in her first month - she wondered how long he had to practice catching the arrow before he had it mastered.

The self-titled king led his prey to the outside of camp, where they both sat on a log and began speaking in hushed tones. Adi had a pretty good idea of what they were talking about, but she didn't like the look of distrust on Henry's face; he was proving to be a lot more stubborn than they had bargained for.

Hope has an irritating way of refusing to be shattered. After all, Adi still held onto hers.

"Adi," Felix said from behind her. She whirled around, blinking rapidly to clear her thoughts. He was chewing on a piece of straw, hood up, shrouding his face in shadow. Still, she could make out the strange stare he was giving her. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," she replied absently, taking a seat beside him. "Just thinking."

"About?"

She bit her lip to stall her response, but he looked pointedly over at her, and she felt compelled to reply. "One of the first things I learned here was that in order to win, I need to have total confidence that I will. But this is different - it's not a game of capture the flag, it's a game where our lives are at stake."

Felix sighed. "The boy is more persistent than we thought. People are strange, Adi. They never do what you expect them to."

"It'd be a lot easier if they would," she muttered.

He replied with a quiet chuckle, and they lapsed into a comfortable silence as they watched the boys practice with their knives and Pan speaking animatedly to Henry. Though Pan held his usual aloof swagger, it was easy for Adi to make out the hint of desperation edging its way into his gaze.

Eventually, he left Henry alone with nothing but his thoughts and a small scroll of white parchment clutched tightly in his hand. Without another word, Adi left Felix and took the empty space next to the Truest Believer.

Even fully aware of her watching him, he threw he paper into the dirt behind him. Even as she crossed her legs and folded her hands neatly in her lap, he still refused to look at her.

He was stubborn, she'd give him that. It was a trait they shared, but she would have preferred it if he was spineless and malleable, a boy who would give into Pan easily.

If he was anything like her, there was nothing she could possibly say to convince him. But she had to at least try.

"It isn't so bad here."

"Why should I listen to you?" Henry asked with surprising force.

"I never said you had to." She shrugged, giving him a second to get up and leave, but he remained stationary. "When I first came here, I hated every single thing right away. It took a while, but everything grew on me. You know about what I was like before - I'm not a fan of change, but I let Neverland in and it became my home. You could do the same."

"What you were like before?"

"I saw you carrying around that _Once Upon a Time_ book every day, so I'm assuming you know my name used to be Fallon Jones."

Henry finally looked at her. "I know you used to be a pirate. I know you used to be the villain who would kill people."

"I do what I need to so I can survive. If that makes me a villain, so be it."

"Kidnapping me is what you needed to do to survive?" He toyed with the bottom button of his plaid shirt.

Adi struggled to reply. "You'll understand later, Henry. I promise. But for now, we have unlimited time to -"

"I don't have unlimited time," he insisted. "My family's going to come rescue me."

"That's what I thought when your mother threw me in her prison," she muttered. "I guess both of our families let us down."

Henry cut her off before she could say anything more, glaring up at her with an anger uncannily like hers burning in his hazel eyes. "I'm nothing like you, and my family is nothing like yours! My parents are coming to find me."

Adi frowned and said, "You can't put that much faith in your family. They'll only let you down."

"At least my family actually cares about me."

Curling her hands into fists, she fought back against the sting of his words. "If they did, don't you think they would be here by now?"

With that, she stood, leaving her last remark burning in his ears and hanging thickly in the air.

Henry stared after Adi as she stood by Pan and Felix again and wondered how on earth someone like her had tolerated - and even befriended - someone like Peter Pan.

"Adeline, Felix, I have a task for you," Pan said the moment Adi returned. Behind the two of them, he caught the movement of the boy reaching back to pick up the previously discarded parchment to unfurl it. The corners of his lips tipped up into a smirk.

Felix responded by swinging his club over his shoulder like usual, but Adi crossed her arms over her chest. "What'll it be this time?"

Pan blinked, caught off guard, but quickly overcame it. "We have a visitor. Actually, he's more of a returning guest. He's lost in the woods a little north of here. Felix, he's near the place where you first arrived on Neverland."

Apparently, that held an important enough meaning to him even after all this time, because he nodded his agreement. "Who?" he dared to ask, raising an eyebrow.

"His name is Baelfire," Pan said. "I doubt you've forgotten him, but Adeline, you've never met him. He was before your time. The son of the Dark One. Either way, he's made good use of his life in the Land Without Magic. The product...well, it's sitting right over there by himself, looking lonely."

It wasn't difficult to put two and two together: Emma and this Baelfire person were Henry's parents. Adi found it almost poetic that the Savior and the son of the Dark One - the epitomes of light and dark - were combined in one utterly powerful person.

"We'll make sure he feels right at home," Felix said decisively before walking into the woods.

Adi hung back a moment, considering to ask what the point of it all was, but instead shot Pan a false smile and followed Felix into the everlasting jungle before them.

* * *

Baelfire landed in the dirt with a soft 'oomph!' as Pan's shadow dropped him unceremoniously to the ground.

Felix and Adi stood at opposite ends of where the man fell; him leaning against a tree and swinging his club left to right like a metronome and her with poised elegance as she pointed an arrow at the newcomer.

Baelfire stood, failing to notice either of them as he studied the foliage around him and shrugged off his jacket. Adi was unsure if he had a plan or if he was really so stupid as to not check his surroundings.

"Welcome home, _Baelfire,"_ Felix said with an air of mockery as he pushed himself from the tree and advanced on the still-kneeling man. Adi took this as her opportunity to approach as well.

She fished in her pocket until she produced a piece of rope which she handed to Felix. "I don't believe we've had the pleasure of meeting, but I'm sure it's lovely to be back. Pan will be happy to see you. But really, you shouldn't have come."

"And who are you?" Baelfire barely put up a fight as the knot was tied around his hands and he was wrenched to his feet. Still, Adi couldn't tell if his plan had been shattered when he realized they had come to greet him, or if he had some other trick up his sleeve.

"My name's Adi."

"You look familiar."

"I hope you haven't, but you might've met my brother - Killian Jones ring a bell?"

Felix pushed Baelfire ahead before he could respond, but the expression of open mouthed shock was reply enough for her.

Adi walked ahead of both of them so that he was surrounded. Baelfire didn't appear to be too bothered with their presence, which angered her about as much as it worried her.

"Feels like just yesterday I welcomed you to Neverland the first time, Baelfire," Felix said. Adi couldn't see him, but she could envision the confident swagger he moved with. "Gotta say, I hoped I'd never see you again."

"Maybe Pan shouldn't have taken my son," Baelfire replied icily.

"Maybe you should've left well enough alone."

He laughed at this, a breathy exhale. "I'm gonna get him back."

Adi chuckled. "Emma said the same thing. I'm having a little trouble believing it."

"You know how long Pan's been searching for the Heart of the Truest Believer," the second-in-command continued. "Do you really think he'd give up that easily?"

"Maybe...if I ask nicely."

Felix snickered. "You may have grown up, but it would appear you've grown up stupid."

"I have grown up," Baelfire agreed. "I don't know if I'm stupid or not, but I do know how to tie an overhand knot."

It didn't occur to Adi until she whirled around to see her friend on the ground, eyes fluttering, and his attacker standing over him, panting, that she had overestimated Felix and underestimated Baelfire. Cursing under her breath, she drew an arrow and prepared for a fight.

But Baelfire was too close, and Adi was too slow. Before she could release the arrow, he simply stepped forward and grabbed it from its nock.

Instead, she reached for her daggers, but nearly shouted aloud when they were nowhere to be found. One was missing from when she had thrown it at Killian, and the other appeared to have gone missing from her belt, which had happened on more than one occasion, but never when she truly needed it.

Adi could have conjured a weapon, but there was no time. Even with her magic as a weapon itself, she wasn't particularly skilled at hand-to-hand.

While she considered this, Baelfire seemed to sense her hesitation, and went for her neck, jamming his thumbs into her windpipe. He slammed her against a tree with such force that her vision spun.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of Felix out cold, his club discarded a few feet from his head and an unsightly lump already forming at the top of his forehead.

Adi mentally shouted every curse in her vocabulary at his still form.

"Hook told me about you, you know - his brave little sister that he was so determined to find. I had hope for you, Adi. I really did."

"Oh, don't..." – she had to stop as she struggled for air – "...don't give up so soon."

He let out a soft laugh. "Too late."

Adi had no breath to reply. With one final shove, despite her attempts to push him off, her head smacked against the rough bark of the tree once more and she pitched forward, dazed and choking on the little air she could grasp.

The world spun. Her bow was inches from her hand, just barely out of reach but too far to touch. Vaguely, she registered Baelfire walking away; she attempted to rise but only succeeded in lifting her head a few inches from the ground.

"Damn it, Felix," Adi muttered though the words fell on deaf ears. Every part of her was screaming for her to get up and punch him so hard that he blacked out again, but it was impossible to move when the back of her head felt like it was melting.

And she was forced to stare at the spinning kaleidoscope of leaves above her, alone with the realization that she had lost yet again.


	19. Price to Pay

**3.19 | Price to Pay**

"I'm gonna let you know I'm not ready to fall;  
when my back's against the wall  
I'm gonna come out fighting."  
Fighting - Saints of Valory

* * *

EVEN BEFORE ADI came to in the middle of the dark forest, her head pounding with a migraine and one of her friends also passed out next to her, she was not having a good day.

The memory of what had happened to her and Felix came swimming back until slowly but surely she recalled Baelfire and how he had so quickly and efficiently taken both of them down in a matter of seconds.

Adi forced herself to rise, suppressing a groan of pain. Her head spun so much she felt like someone had thrown her brain in a blender.

Felix was likely feeling worse, but she remembered he was the reason Baelfire had escaped, and allowed the anger gnawing at her to grow. For a second, she considered shooting him, but his eyes snapped open of their own accord as he gave a loud, choking gasp. He glanced over to Adi, half sitting up in the dirt beside him, and grimaced.

"Get up," Adi commanded as she did the same, hauling herself to her feet and brushing the dirt from her clothes. She knew that the longer they waited to return to camp, the longer Baelfire had to get further away from them, and the more furious Pan would be with them.

Two of the sentries securing the edge of camp, Max and Christopher, lay almost innocently on the ground by the time they returned, as if they'd just decided to take a casual nap on the job. Both were still breathing but unconscious.

Nothing around them was disturbed, but there was a peculiar look about the scene: there was no sign of a struggle. Max's twin daggers were sheathed, untouched at his sides; Chris' sword was stuck point up in the dirt like always.

Adi leaned down to touch Chris and was surprised to find her fingers tingling: he radiated of magic. She found herself wondering what Pan had done, then felt unease claw at her as she remembered Emma and Regina did as well.

"A sleeping curse," she said, simmering. How dare they? A sleeping curse was better than death, but they had no right to invade the camp and harm her brothers.

When they passed the perimeter, Adi crossed her arms over her chest, mildly surprised to find the rest of the Lost Ones were awake, wildly dancing around the fire. In their absence, Pan had started the party before knowing if he had even won.

Felix stopped a little before the fire in the middle of the boys' circle. It took a moment for Pan to catch his eye and walk away from Henry. Adi stepped beside the second in command, an outraged glint in her eye fit to match the one in the leader's.

" _What_?" Pan spat, pushing his way through the jumping boys to get to them. "I know that look - what happened?"

"Baelfire..." Felix hesitated. "I'm afraid he got away. We tried –"

"Felix is an idiot," Adi interrupted ardently. "Baelfire would've been ours if he hadn't been so overconfident."

Both of them chose to ignore her, much to her annoyance.

"We found two of our sentries knocked out by a sleeping spell."

"The Dark One," Pan inferred with a smile twitching at his lips, seemingly forgetting his rage from moments before. "So, father and son have been reunited."

Adi had to take a moment for it to click: the Dark One was Neal's father, who was Henry's father. With two mothers and grandparents the same age as said mothers, the kid had one strange family tree.

"They'll be coming for him soon, then," she said with a glance at Henry. "We should probably put him somewhere they can't find him."

"Now, now, Adeline, where's your sense of adventure? That's half the fun."

She said in a deadpan, "You're going to get us all killed."

He only smiled. "We can't end the party when the real fun is about to begin."

Adi let out a sharp exhale through her teeth in an attempt to put a cap on her anger. "I'm not sure if I can say the same for you, but dying is definitely not on my list of 'fun things.'"

"Perhaps you need to rethink your definitions of 'fun' and 'dying.'"

Pan retook his position atop his favorite tree stump, pulling out his flute. The music, like always, was haunting; it echoed into the furthest corners of the island, calling out to anyone lost like him.

It must have given him a sickening sense of power to be able to control others with something as simple as a song. Adi, fighting that song's power, turned on her heel toward her cabin, desperately wishing for a nap.

Falling into bed fully clothed, she let the music wash over her like it was a lullaby instead of an army march. The more Pan played, the louder the chants and cries of the others got, but she twisted her face into the pillow and shut her eyes.

 _Weightless. She felt utterly weightless, like she was flying with Henry again, only someone was carrying her by the wrist instead, forcing her to stay up in the air although her body felt moments away from tumbling out of the person's grip._

 _The wind rushed past, sharp like knives._

 _Her vision was blurry, but she could make out the vague shapes of the half-moon above, the glassy sheen of water below, the figure over her. Something felt different, strange, but she couldn't place the feeling._

 _His name was on her mouth when he let go of her arm; the single syllable morphed into a shout of alarm, then terror, then dread._

 _The water sharpened into focus as she neared, getting closer and closer until she slammed into it with so much force she felt the skin being torn from her bones, and as she sunk deeper she swore she saw something gold glimmer in the disjointed tide above._

Adi didn't wake out of fear from the dream, although her heart was racing. She was ripped from her rest the moment Pan's song was shattered, stilling the camp into an absolute silence foreign to her.

The ceiling spun above her, but she squeezed her eyes shut and forced herself to get up, cross the room, and peer out the window. Again, something felt off – wrong. Quiet almost never completely fell over this part of the island.

The fire had sputtered out and died, shrouding the compound in an odd, dark glow. Every boy had collapsed to the ground like Max and Chris had earlier. Pan was the only one still on his feet, his hair twinkling with flecks of what looked like violet glitter.

Magic.

"We have a guest," Pan proclaimed to the empty area. "No doubt someone who knows how much I like guessing games."

He tossed a glance up toward the tree houses, and his eyes locked on hers for a moment. The raise of his eyebrow was a challenge: _make your move, or run and hide. The decision is yours._

Pulling her fingers through her hair, Adi accepted the challenge and transported herself to stand by his side.

"I wonder who it could be," Pan continued, a smirk playing at the edge of his mouth. Something told Adi that he already knew. "I guess...the Dark One."

As he spoke, she spawned a cloud of fire and sent it spinning into the fire pit, illuminating the area as well as the figure of a man, just the one he had been expecting: the Dark One.

The same man who had taken Milah and Killian's left hand, the same man who had injured Fallon with a mere wave of his hand, the same man who had pulled the final trigger that caused her brother's thirst for vengeance to rise as high as Neverpeak. His skin was neither green nor glittering, but he looked the same as the time he had come to the _Roger_ as a man to beg for his wife back: pathetic.

"Come to save Henry, have you, laddie? How exciting," Pan mocked with excitement.

 _Laddie?_

Out of the corner of her eye, Adi caught a flash of Baelfire moving what he thought was stealthily through the bushes, a loaded crossbow balanced precariously in one hand. She had to fight back a smirk – maybe, if he'd stayed with the Lost Boys, he'd have gotten better lessons in stealth.

Then again, if he had stayed, none of this would've happened.

"The Dark One, ready to sacrifice his life for his family," continued Pan. A different tone hung in his voice, one that suggested he knew much more than he was letting on.

After sharing a glance with Pan, Adi looked over at Baelfire with his crossbow. "Speaking of family...you can come out now."

His footsteps crunched leaves as he moved away from the safety of the trees, bolt pointed directly at Pan's heart. There was only one arrow.

It seemed they had yet again underestimated Adi - their mistake.

"Name's Neal now." He moved to stand beside his father.

"New name but the same old tricks." Pan exhaled breathily. "Heartwarming to see father and son working together once more, especially against old enemies of the Dark One's."

Faltering for a moment, Baelfire - Neal - hesitated before deciding to aim the bow at Adi instead. She attempted to hide her surprise but arched an eyebrow anyway. Daring him to do it. "You knew my father?"

"He stole my brother's hand and love from him, and my sword from me, so I'd say I knew him pretty well. At least the sparkly green skin isn't present anymore - that was a tragedy of itself."

The Dark One bared his teeth at her. "I should've killed you when I had the chance."

Adi pretended to consider that, nodding with her lips pursed. "A lot of people say that, but funny thing is, I'm still alive. I'm seeing a distinct lack of effort here."

There was a pause, and Pan cut back to the previous issue as if nothing had happened. "This is a real family reunion."

The words held a considerable weight, one Adi could feel but not fully understand. She wanted to ask, but realized that now was not the right time - although there never seemed to be a truly right time anymore.

Neal shifted the bow back to Pan.

But in choosing to target Pan, both Rumplestiltskin and Baelfire made one crucial mistake: miscalculating the measures Adi was willing to take.

A brief moment's hesitation. Neal pressed the trigger. This time, Adi didn't even flinch.

Pan caught the bolt with the arrowhead centimeters from his chest, exhaling a laugh. "Clever. But we've been through this before, Baelfire. Have you remembered nothing?"

Was being shot at so common that he regularly made life lessons out of it?

"I remember plenty." He dropped the crossbow into the dirt. "That's why I didn't coat the tip."

His emerald eyes widened a fraction of an inch and he dropped the arrow; it hit the ground with an audible clatter. The moment it was out of his grasp, a purple not unlike Adi's magic clawed its way from the palm of his hand, creeping over his body in a plum sheen that froze him in place.

"Now, you," the Dark One said as he turned his attention to the girl. "You, we weren't prepared for. But this should do the trick."

The fire that had begun to pool in Adi's palm intensified as he advanced toward her, but it extinguished the moment he waved his hand and a much heavier layer of magic coated her.

The first sleeping spell had been light, enough to put about twenty non-magical beings out cold. But her magic made her more resistant to such weak spells, and a more concentrated dose did the trick.

Stumbling, Adi glared up at him with a ferocity he'd never seen her hold before.

"This is all your fault," she spat, leaning back against a tree in a futile attempt to keep herself upright. Her hand slid against the bark as she crumpled to the ground. "It's your fault Killian's the way he is, and it's your fault I'm here."

"How do you figure that, dearie?" He said the last word like it was a joke. Adi didn't laugh.

"He - he wasn't thinking straight when the queen summoned me because you killed Milah. Maybe, if he was, he would've come after me and I wouldn't be here."

"Interesting how fate works."

The spell pressed against her, heavy and determined. Adi's eyelids fluttered, and her words came out slurred. "No one decides my fate but me."

Out of the corner of her bleary eye, she spotted Neal slinging Henry over his shoulder. A thousand obscenities rushed through her mind, but she couldn't vocalize them through the tension in her jaw.

The Dark One joined his son and grandson. Pan yelled something after them that Adi couldn't make out as they left the camp with the Truest Believer.

Adi stilled, her head lolling to the side, darkness creeping into her vision as she admitted defeat for what she hoped was the last time.

* * *

When Adi said she wanted a nap, this wasn't what she meant. She peeled her eyes open, squinting against the darkness, feeling like she'd been hit by a truck.

By the time she shook away the grogginess, all memory of the moments before she'd been forced into unconsciousness returned: the Dark One and his son taking Henry, Pan being trapped, the general feeling of failure.

A thin film of dust layered Adi's clothes, and her hair was impossible to even run a hand through. In short, she looked and felt a mess, and was ready to deck the first person who spoke to her. That unfortunate soul happened to be Slightly.

"I didn't know sleeping spells affected you."

With a small flick of her wrist, the grime floated from her shirt and back to the ground. She raked through her curls, and upon feeling the extreme amount of tangles in them, huffed and fixed them with magic as well. "It does when it's the Dark One himself."

Magic was magic, and it impacted everyone with enough time and force. On a place like Neverland, with unlimited time, someone like the Dark One - with an abundance of power - could've had a field day. She was surprised he hadn't done more.

"D'you know where Pan went?" Slightly asked.

"Does it look like I know where he went?"

He put his hands up in surrender and left her alone at that.

Rolling her eyes, she pulled her bow off her shoulder and took a seat on Pan's tree stump until he decided to return and grace them with his presence. She really needed to have a talk with him.

Bored and still attempting to ignore the dull throbbing behind her eyes, Adi crossed her legs and began to toy with the fire, diminishing it down to embers and then enlarging it until the heat washed so thickly over her that she began to feel faint. It wasn't as destructive as she had once thought. Actually, it was almost beautiful.

Before Neverland, before Storybrooke, Fallon had been terrified of having power over something so uncontrollable. So reckless. To someone like her, composed and deliberate, fire was nothing short of terrifying.

But, as with all things, she eventually ceased to care.

Around her, one by one, the boys slowly came out of their lethargic, magic-induced sleep with the same air of irritated pain as her. Even so, they still resumed their daily tasks, which had recently turned into playing with weapons and creating new types of games.

It was partly to make Henry believe the island was twenty-four-seven fun and games (if weapons can be considered fun and target practice considered a game); anything to make him stay.

Ace was the next to approach Adi. Lucky for him, she was more exhausted than angry by now, and only stared up at him with a blank expression as he demanded she tell him what happened. She obliged on the condition that he told her what had happened with Baelfire long before she arrived.

"He was a little younger than Henry when he arrived by shadow in the dead of night. It dropped him in the sea, and he probably would've drowned if not for your brother. Hook saved Bae. Pan knew, but he told us to wait. At the time, I was his second in command, so I knew everything: Bae was Milah's son, and when he found out that Hook had been with his mother, he knew he couldn't trust him. So he came to the island with us."

"How long was he here?"

"A while." He shrugged offhandedly. "Not all of us try to keep track of time like you do. It was a little bit. That's all I can really say."

Adi tried to make sense of the twisted family tree, of which the Dark One was the center, but couldn't wrap her mind around the concept. There were too many dead people and related people and magical people on this small island.

"Thank you," she finally said.

He looked confused. "For what? You told me something, I told you something - it was a fair trade."

"Not for telling me, but for being honest." She shrugged. "Not everyone has been recently."

"And by everyone, you mean Pan." It wasn't a question, more of a statement - an accusation, if she thought about it hard enough.

"Not necessarily." Lie.

However, Ace left it at that. He gave her one last glance before turning back to the others, who had congregated around the recently instituted rope-climbing game. Again, Adi was reminded of her freshman gym class. (That class period, upon finding out the activity, had been spent in the nurse's office as she suddenly experienced a wave of 'abdominal pain' like no other).

Two separate ropes hung from a single branch, fifteen or so feet high with a rusty golden bell at the top of each. Tootles and Devon were competing at the moment with a frenzied energy reflected in the jeers and shouts of the rest circling around them on the ground.

Felix, Adi realized, was nowhere to be found. She bit her lip and decided to join in on the fun while she could, before she had to start fighting him or Pan or both.

Aided by his height, Devon reached the top first, rang the bell with a resonating clang, and slid down the rope like a fireman on a pole.

"Think you can win?" Tootles asked when he reached the ground, turning to Adi with raised eyebrows.

She stared at him with reluctance. "Uh..."

"Don't bother, Tootles," Devon chimed in, panting. "This is more of a boys' sport." He was grinning a little, so she assumed he was joking, but it still bothered her enough for her to grit her teeth and step forward in front of the empty rope.

"We'll see about that, Devon."

"Ready?" Ace said, somewhere behind them. "Go!"

The rope was rough beneath her hands, but Adi used it to her advantage. Friction helped her climb higher though her shoes kept slipping against its contours. She was more agile, but Devon was taller than her and far more experienced.

Laughing, he reached up to tap the bell at the top of the branch and slowly climbed back down. Adi groaned over-dramatically, gave hers a halfhearted ring, and slid down the rope. Her hands burned against it.

"Gotta say, you're not terrible."

"Not bad?" Ace snorted. "He's the best of all of us."

"You're damn right." Devon smirked. "But now that I think about it, I've never seen Adi lose anything. How's it feel?"

She rolled her eyes, but the words were a stinging reminder that she had been losing a lot lately. "Shut up."

A wicked grin curled at Ace's mouth. "I guess you could say he's pretty _ace_ at rope climbing."

There was a communal groan in the general vicinity, but Ace wore his smirk like a badge of honor.

"Alright," Slightly chimed in. "Who's next?"

For a moment, as Adi volunteered to compete against Ace, determined to win, she forgot why she was even worried in the first place.

She would do anything for this ragtag group of boys. Anything to save them - and wasn't that the whole point?

Now, she laughed with her friends, forgetting the failure and the loss she had experienced earlier. She loved them with her whole heart, truly and deeply and fearlessly.

But later, the worry would crash back into her, dragging her back out to sea into the twisted world of Neverland, into the quest for the evasive Believer's heart. She would drown in an ocean of fear and doubt, slowly and quietly and painfully.

That was just the price she had to pay.


	20. Woman of Honor

**3.20 | Woman of Honor**

"And I am sorry my conscience called in sick again  
and I've got arrogance down to a science."  
I Slept With Someone in Fall Out Boy and All I Got Was This Stupid Song Written About Me - Fall Out Boy

* * *

FOR A GIRL who had approved of and aided in kidnapping, Adi thought she was keeping her cool rather well. No one seemed to realize how much exasperation and exhaustion her blood was boiling with, a feat she generally wasn't that good at accomplishing.

But when Pan didn't return after the hours began to slide by, Adi felt tricked, felt her emotions rising until they screamed through, felt her doubt and her rage building up inside.

Did Pan not trust her? Was he in to deep, too obsessed with the power of the heart, to care what she thought anymore? Or was he seeing her worthlessness in this whole situation and avoiding her rather than confronting her about it?

Sighing audibly, she shifted her position to scan the perimeter for the umpteenth time. Most of the boys were talking casually or climbing the ropes (she still had yet to win) or training with their weapons. Henry sat a few feet away from her on the same log, watching the others jeer at each other.

Adi toyed with the bowstring in her lap, seconds away from zoning out when Henry's voice interrupted.

"Ow!"

"So you're the kid Pan has been looking for all this time?" Devon stepped out from behind where they sat, spear in hand level with Henry's shoulder. Adi's head snapped over to the two with a vague interest.

"Ask him," Henry said, disinterested. Devon took a swipe at him, and he leapt up in alarm. "Stop it!"

The general movement of camp halted as all attention became focused on the situation at hand. No one made any move to harm or help – this was Devon and Henry's conflict, not any of theirs.

Although, Adi felt partially responsible, as she was in charge in the absence of Pan and Felix - both of whom were missing. But she would allow the conflict to run its course until it got out of hand.

"If you can't take this, how are you gonna handle what Pan has in store for you?" Devon stepped closer, taunting the boy with a feral grin as he brandished his spear.

 _Yeah, like_ Devon _knows what Pan has in store for Henry._

Henry said nothing, but moved back. His gaze fell on a stick a few feet behind him. Devon nodded at it, and Henry picked it up.

Without warning, Devon lurched at Henry, wielding his spear like a sword as he jabbed at the Truest Believer; Henry fought back, catching the weapon against his own. It was easy to see he'd never fought anyone before in the way he tensed and jabbed like an amateur; if he did have prior experience, it wasn't anything like this.

Devon had his teeth bared, prepared to attack again, but paused as a smooth voice sliced through the tension.

"Not bad." Pan was standing at the edge of the compound, leaning on the same tree Adi had fainted against, his arms crossed over his chest in a casual manner, like he hadn't been missing for the past few hours. "But wouldn't it be more fun if you had real swords?"

'More fun' was a bit of a subjective term in Adi's opinion. "Pan -" she tried to cut in, but he held a hand to silence her and nodded at the boy to respond.

"I've never used a real sword," Henry said quietly.

Pan moved to stand behind him. "This is Neverland. You have the heart of the Truest Believer. You can use whatever you want - you just need to believe."

A knot of nerves was forming inside of Adi. Henry didn't radiate magic in the same subtle way Pan and Emma and Regina did, and she was unsure if that was a good or bad thing.

Perhaps because, as the Truest Believer, it only worked on Neverland.

"Close your eyes, and believe you're holding a real sword."

Henry did as he was instructed; the uneven, bumpy wood abruptly shifted to a shining silver blade in less than a heartbeat. Around him, hushed exclamations of shock and murmured whispers of praise erupted.

Adi, however, was quiet. She had felt the magic then, unlike anything she'd felt on Neverland before.

Something about it felt strong, pure, beautiful. Something about a person like Pan exploiting such pure magic felt wrong, tainted, revolting.

Pan stepped back, oblivious to her thoughts, grinning. Henry opened his eyes to marvel at the creation. Devon retook his original position and prepared for a rematch; this time, his posture was slouched and his smirk had faded a little.

"What are you waiting for? Go on."

Lunging forward, Henry swiped at Devon, who flinched back immediately. Pan and the others yelled words of encouragement after him as he pressed on, swinging his newly fashioned blade back and forth as he gained more and more confidence.

Eventually, Devon ran out of room to avoid Henry, and the boy sliced his wooden spear in half with one clean swipe. Despite the older boy's fearful expression, Henry kept going until Devon stumbled back, clutching his cheek.

"I - I'm sorry!" It took a moment for Henry to realize the gash on Devon's face was of his doing. He probably had never hurt anyone – not like this. "It was an accident."

Wiping some of the blood from his face, he glared accusingly at him and didn't reply.

Adi was reminded vaguely of the scar she had given Felix; of the smaller ones she had given Killian all up and down his arms when he had been teaching her how to fight.

 _Pain doesn't pass with time - Fallon learned that the hard way. It only manifests, growing on and on and on until you can't take it anymore. You snap, and the pain morphs into anger like a parasite gnawing on your insides._

 _When Liam died, Killian expected Fallon to take weeks - a month, maybe - to move on from the hurt and begin to feel fury._

 _It took less than a day._

 _By that time, the newly renamed_ Jolly Roger _had long since abandoned the coastline and all thoughts of a route from the queen. The dawn blossomed along the never ending horizon in a fascinating watercolor of pink and orange and yellow, the same colors as the dresses Fallon clutched as she carefully moved up the stairs so as not to trip over them._

 _Killian didn't even have time to question her before she had dumped them in the water. The warm colors blended into the sunrise's reflection and then disappeared into the murky depths in a cloud of darkness._

 _"What was that for?"_

 _Fallon had dark circles beneath her eyes that she rubbed as she spoke. "I don't have a wide range of pirate knowledge, but I'm pretty sure they don't wear pink." She was currently in maroon - one of the three dark colors she owned. "Can I use your knife?"_

 _He eyed her warily but handed it over, keeping a watchful glance on her as she hefted the puffy, bottom portion of it up and began slicing into the sleek fabric until the entirety of the bottom was on the ground and the dress itself reached just above her knees._

 _And the sleeves were next: the excessively billowing cloth was shaved away until Fallon stood in the morning's chill shivering but lighter. The world felt smaller._

 _Before she could second-guess herself, Fallon brandished Killian's knife at him. "Fight me."_

 _He stared at her like she was insane - which, given the circumstances, was fair. But there was a second blade at his side, ready for his use, and Fallon was ready for him to use it on her. "Fallon, I'm not going to fight you."_

 _Fury bubbled up inside her. "I need to learn how to defend myself!"_

 _"No, you don't." He sighed._

 _"I don't?" she asked icily. "Maybe if I'd known how to, Liam would have let me come with you, and he'd still be alive. But he didn't, and he's not, and so now you're freeing yourself of the queen's rule. This is me freeing myself from yours."_

 _Killian pressed his hand to his temple. "Are you sure about this?"_

 _"Positive."_

 _It was true. Fallon was brimming with hate, with anger, with spite. When her brother attacked her - albeit hesitantly - she was ready to retaliate. Every time her shoulders met the deck with a resounding bang, every time her blade clattered to the floor, every time she fell, Fallon thought of Liam, of the one who murdered him. And she got back up._

 _By the next week, Killian brought her slices of wood varying in widths and lengths, and told her to get to work. He thought she would be a fantastic archer from her affinity for distance fighting, for working alone and remaining hidden. He said training would be different than with a sword, but she would master it._

 _"I'll teach you," he told her, even though she knew he'd never shot a bow in his entire life. "You'll be a better pirate than everyone on this ship put together."_

 _Fallon beamed at this, a wicked thing filled with exhilaration and rage that Killian had never seen on her until now. "Then let's get started."_

The memory, vivid and clear like a movie, came to Adi as easily as if someone had chosen scene select on a DVD page and picked it for her. It had been a long time since she'd seen a memory like she used to, like she did before she knew of her double identity. It had been a long time since she had seen herself as Fallon Jones.

She shook it away, turning her attention back to the scene at hand. There was no time to get lost in the past now.

"Adeline, I have something I need you to do." Pan drew her out of her thoughts as he stood in front of her with a winning smile. "Are you up to the task?"

Adi had to flip through a mental list of every single thing she wanted to spit at him, the good, the indifferent, the angry, before she could decide on an answer. "No."

He arched an eyebrow. "No? Why not?"

"You're hiding something from me," she said, looking evenly back at him. "And I'm not going anywhere until I find out what."

Something like alarm flashed across Pan's face - either because of the demand or the fact that she was actually refusing him, she was unsure - but he quickly masked it with an easy smirk. "What gives you that impression?"

"You're always disappearing, you don't tell me everything you know, you have this idea that you have control over everything, when really, there's no way you can predict every single thing that will happen with Henry's family. Pan, you need to tell me things, or I can't help you. I'm not going to blindly follow orders just because I consider myself your ally."

"I'm not hiding anything, I promise," he replied smoothly, reaching out to touch her shoulder. "Have you been getting enough sleep?"

"I'm fine," Adi said as she shrugged away from him, but the words tasted like acid in her mouth. "What is it you wanted me to do?"

She had given him multiple opportunities to tell her the truth. If he refused, that was fine with her. It simply meant that when things spun out of his control - as they always do - she would not be there to pick up the pieces of his shattered plans.

"That's the spirit," Pan said, still smiling. "Your brother and the prince - David, I believe they're calling him - are currently off on their own, searching for something to help heal the wound you so nicely gave him."

"Dead Man's Peak. The water."

"There we go."

"What am I supposed to do about that?"

"Don't deter them - Killian knows us well enough to not fall for that. No, I just need you to occupy them for a while until I can take care of something."

"Occupy them?" Adi repeated, perplexed. "And how do you propose I do that?"

"Whatever you think is necessary." Pan shrugged. "Taunt them, if you wish. I know you don't particularly enjoy being underestimated. Perhaps show them what you're really made of."

The whole thing seemed vague and unnecessary. But Adi could play along, pretend she was fine with being kept in the dark, until the time was right.

"Fine," she said in a clipped tone. "I'll see you later."

Pan opened his mouth to say something, but she disappeared before he was allowed the chance.

Adi figured she could estimate the prince and the pirate's location near the base of Neverpeak; if they weren't already there, they would be soon.

When she heard their voices, she knew she was in the right place.

"- not when I can still save Henry," David was in the middle of saying when she arrived.

She stood directly behind Killian, unarmed saved for the daggers in her belt, and studied the two for half a second. The prince - David, Charming, whatever his name was - had the bottom portion of his shirt pulled up to reveal a blackened slice through his skin, an open cut with inky veins clawing away from it up toward his head. Killian was half-supporting him, half leaning against the rock for backup.

"Ooh," Adi sung with a tone of false worry and mild interest, startling Killian so much that he nearly dropped David. "That doesn't look healthy. Have you thought about seeing some sort of specialist?"

Forgetting her issues with Pan, she forced herself to remember the mission: saving the island, saving herself, saving her friends. If this would help, she had to play the part.

Once he was sure the prince could stand on his own, Killian turned around and bared his teeth at her. "Fallon, what the bloody hell are you doing?"

"Y'know, I'd love to tell you, but one, that isn't my name, and two, where's the fun in that?"

"Alright, _Adi_ , there's a reason you're here, and I don't assume it's to help. Either Pan sent you, or you want to start a fight. Which, if you do, I suggest you go back to your camp and fight him." Killian shot her a glare and turned back to David, who was attempting to hoist himself up with the base of the mountain, but gritted his teeth in pain the moment he took the pressure off his arm. "Save your breath, mate, or what little time you have left will be less."

After a groan, David did what he was told. Killian leaned back, running a hand over his face, and turned to face Adi once again. "Out with it, what do you want?"

Adi tilted her head back to stare up at the sky with an expression of false contemplation. "I want a lot of things - some pizza, a decent shower, a way to get you off my island - but we can't always get what we want. You know all about that, don't you, Hook?"

"Aye," he responded gravely, looking more tired than anything. He didn't seem to miss her calling him Hook instead of Killian.

As he opened his mouth to say more, their conversation was cut short by a rustling over by David. "Mate -"

"This is a military insignia," David held up what looked similar to a luggage tag, brushing dirt off of it. "Says Jones on the back. You know him?" He tossed it to Killian, coughing.

The siblings tensed. "Aye. He was our captain, and our brother. We voyaged this island a long time ago."

"I didn't," Adi muttered. Both men turned to her. "Remember that, Hook? Liam died because you refused to let me come? It's funny, because I almost died the same way." She ripped her sleeve up to show him the pale scar that slashed through the middle of her forearm.

Killian stared impassively back at her. "Anything else you'd like to yell at me about?"

"Oh, I'm just getting started."

"Are you?" he asked with a lazy dip of his head.

"Stop acting like you don't care," she accused with a mixture of anger and disgust. "Oh, wait, you don't. At least, you didn't about me."

"Fallon –"

" _Adi._ And you know what? It doesn't really matter anymore, because look where we are now: I'm the one in control. I'm the one with a say in your fate. So tell me, Hook, should I lock _you_ away and leave _you_ forever? Sounds like a fair deal to me."

"I thought you were dead!" Killian nearly shouted, stepping closer to her. "All of us were sure the queen had ripped your heart out. Milah was gone, you were gone, I didn't know what to do."

"You did," Adi hissed. "But you were too much of a coward."

"Speaking of being a coward," he said bitterly. Now she'd gotten him angry, and she was unsure where the conversation would go now. "How's it feel to be allied with the person who murdered our brother? Or have you forgotten Pan was the reason Liam died?"

"Liam's death is on no one's hands but yours. Who decided it was a good idea to leave without me? Who would've been able to convince him not to test the poison? Who left the island, even knowing that the water wouldn't work outside of Neverland? Who refused to listen to Pan's warning? This is all on you, _Killian_. Not him."

Killian shook his head. "He's brainwashed you, Fallon. No matter what I tell you, you'll continue to believe what you wish because you look at that demon like he put the stars in the sky."

 _He didn't put them in the sky. I did_.

"I'm not in love with him." She rolled her eyes. "But I sided with him after I realized that you, the only family I had left, betrayed me in more ways than I can count."

"He's lying to you," he replied, this time much calmer. "You can't trust a thing he says."

 _Don't you think I know that?_

Before she could respond aloud, David interrupted. "Adi, what are you really doing here? Don't you have more important things to be dealing with?"

Her gaze slid slowly from Killian to him. "What, like _brainwashing_ your grandson? Pan's got that covered, I believe. I came to make sure you're still alive."

"Me?" He raised an eyebrow. "What do you care?"

"You've mixed Pan and me up. I don't believe in needless death - when you leave, I want to make sure you do so breathing."

"Maybe you should've thought of that before you shot me."

" _Maybe_ you shouldn't have infiltrated my home."

Killian stared at her. "So you'll kill Henry, an innocent child, without hesitation, but when it comes to us, you suddenly care? Where was this before?"

She fixed him with a cold glare. "Henry won't die. But I assure you, if you get in our way, you will. As much as I'm a Lost Girl, I'm also a woman of honor. And as much as I hate him" – she jabbed her thumb in her brother's direction – "it looks like you're in okay hands. Well, hand."

"Aye," the pirate said before the prince could respond, rolling his eyes at the hook joke. "He is."

"One more thing." Adi beamed at them, but anyone could see the hatred for her brother behind it. "You stand in my way, I will not hesitate to take you down."

"Why not just kill us now?" David asked.

She raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. "Don't tempt me." Then she vanished.

If she wanted them dead, wouldn't it have been done already? Her arrow had it him like that on purpose - Pan's orders.

Their underestimation of her would just make victory that much sweeter.

* * *

Killian took yet another - he'd long since lost count - drink from his flask and reveled in the burn of the cool liquid against his throat. Sighing, he closed his eyes and trailed his fingers along the sleek metal of his hook in a therapeutic manner.

A throat clearing shattered that tranquility. Almost reluctantly, Killian opened his eyes to see the devil himself leaned up against a tree with his arms crossed over his chest. "You really should've taken my deal."

"It doesn't look like I need your help with Emma after all, mate." Killian shot him a falsely benign smile and took another sip.

"What, you think that kiss actually meant something?" Pan pushed off from the tree.

"I do. I think it means she's finally starting to see me for the man I really am."

"What," Pan chuckled, "A one-handed pirate with a drinking problem? I'm no grown up, but I'm pretty sure that's less than appealing."

"A man of honor," the pirate corrected him.

"A man of honor who abandoned his family over a petty revenge."

Killian snorted. "Do you really believe that? How have you managed to get someone as headstrong as my sister to believe every single bloody word you say?"

Pan stepped closer, tilting his head to the side though the pirate showed no sign of being remotely unnerved. "All it took was a few pushes in the right direction. Adeline did everything else on her own. I heard the two of you talked today. Don't know what it is you said to her, but you've got her all in a mood now."

"She's eternally in a mood, mate, I'm surprised you haven't noticed," he said as he capped his rum and shoved it inside his leather coat.

"Well, you know best how good I am at influencing others. How well I can keep a secret. She can keep secrets, but can you? What would a man of honor such as yourself do with a big, fat secret?"

Huffing, Killian raised his head. "I suppose it depends what the secret is."

"Baelfire," Pan said, rising to his full height. He waited for the pirate's head to snap toward him to continue. "Neal. Whatever name he goes by these days. The guy Emma loves. Henry's father."

"What of him?" Killian got to his feet, moving toward Pan. "He's dead."

"No, I'm afraid not. He's alive. And that's not even the best part." Pan stepped back toward the foliage. He spread his arms wide with a manic grin. "He's in Neverland!"

"No," Killian muttered under his breath.

Pan either didn't hear or didn't care. "I'll leave it up to you to tell Emma or not. I'd hate to get in the way of a budding romance. Let's see what kind of man you really are." He moved further into the trees, feet away from disappearing into the jungle, but he leaned back to say something else. "And I should have you know - yours isn't the only budding romance."

"What's that supposed to mean?" the pirate sounded dazed, breathless, as he stared back at the demon king.

The demon in question shrugged offhandedly. "I'll leave that up to you to decide." And he left Killian Jones with a thousand questions hanging off of his lips and a single fear burning deep inside.


	21. Playing a Game

**3.21 | Playing a Game**

"It's hard to get to heaven  
when you're born hellbound."  
Broken Arrow - The Script

* * *

ADI KNEW THAT talking to Felix about Pan's plan was a bad idea from the start. But she wasn't exactly known for her institution of good ideas, nor was she known for keeping her mouth shut.

"I don't get it," she said to Felix, brushing her thumb over the tip of her dagger absently, daring it to make her bleed. "How am I supposed to help if I don't even know what's going on?"

He sighed. "I know, but we need to be confident that he knows what he's doing. He always does."

"No, he doesn't," Adi muttered. "Winging it every time a new problem rises is not knowing what he's doing, it's walking on a tightrope and barely catching himself every time he loses his balance."

"We've made it this far, haven't we?" Felix challenged, at which Adi bristled. "Maybe it's for a reason. Maybe part of his plan is to withhold information from us."

"That's a stupid idea. He needs us."

"Does he? He seemed to be doing pretty fine before you came along, and I don't even have magic. Just this." He held up his club for her to see with a raised eyebrow.

"Look," she said impatiently. "I'm not saying that Pan can't handle himself, because we both know he can, but we need to step carefully. Otherwise, the entire island is going to collapse in on itself because he thought he could do it on his own. And he tells me pride is _my_ main flaw."

Now it was Felix's turn to become impatient. He angled himself toward her so she was almost forced to rip her eyes from the knife and look at him. Blue on blue - gunmetal on sapphire. "The whole point of this is to save us. To save our brothers. Put aside your pride for a second and think about it."

Adi's throat went dry as she looked at him, then looked around at the chaos that she called her home and the Lost Ones she called her brothers. Her best friends, even after she left them behind without as much as an explanation. Because that's what family is about.

She resented it, but said, "You're right."

He didn't respond, which she was glad for, because any of the others would've gloated. There was a small smile on his face, but nothing more.

These people were more important to her than any others - even the crew of the _Jolly Roger_ that she spent a little less than a year with. It felt like a short time, but it was enough. Enough for her to figure out what kind of people they really were.

* * *

 _The tavern was alive with the glow and chatter of men and drinks alike, and the stench of rum was so potent Fallon thought she might faint. It was far too loud, but someone had to keep track of the drunken men and make sure they made it back to the_ Roger _in one piece for the dawn sail._

 _The girl in question sat at the bar alone, fingers gripping the bridge of her nose in a futile attempt to ward off the headache wrapping her skull in fire. Alcohol's scent had the unfortunate effect of making her feel nauseous without a single sip. She wasn't complaining - seeing Killian's incoherence when was intoxicated was enough to make her forgo rum for the rest of her life._

 _"You're alone?" A body sidled into the chair next to her, uncomfortably close. Fallon shifted and glanced at the person. He was maybe a few years older than her, caramel-skinned with brown eyes like coffee. "Let me buy you a drink."_

 _It was not a question._

 _Fallon scrunched up her nose. "Not alone, actually. I'm babysitting the group of idiots over there in the corner. And thanks, but I don't drink."_

 _He glanced from the crew to her and back again. "With friends like those?"_

 _"Friends?" she repeated with a hint of contempt. "That's...generous."_

 _"How so? They look like fine men to me."_

 _They both turned to the crew. Smee was currently trying to throw Killian's detached hook into the wall like it was a dart board, but somehow ended up tossing it backwards so it smacked him in the face. Everyone laughed._

 _Fallon shot a pointed look at the man beside her._

 _"So what are you still doing here, Miss...?"_

 _The invitation to give him her name was too clichéd for her to not shake her head and smile at him. He was a charmer, she'd give him that. "Jones. Fallon Jones."_

 _"A lovely name for a lovely girl. I'm Alexander."_

 _"Well, Alexander, I'm still here because one of those morons is my brother, and by some unspoken familial law, I'm obligated to stay by his side to make sure he doesn't vomit all over his beloved leather jacket."_

 _A smirk twitched at the edge of Alexander's mouth. "Come on, princess, you're just waiting for someone to save you."_

 _Fallon was momentarily distracted by Smee, locked in another man's grip, motioning frantically over in her direction. They were both staring at her, but she narrowed her eyes at them and turned away._

 _"Maybe the princess can save herself. That sounds like a pretty good story, too."_

 _Before he could reply, a new voice interrupted. "Excuse me, miss, but I believe you owe me something."_

 _"Do I?" Fallon asked almost lazily. The man who she had seen with Smee moments ago now leered down at her. Something told her that the conclusion of this issue would not be in her favor. "Enlighten me."_

 _"Miss Jones, I'm so -" Smee was shaking, extremely red in the face, as he interrupted. Dread congealed in her stomach, and not because he kept calling her_ miss _like the proper lady she absolutely was not._

 _"Sorry?" the unfamiliar man finished, sneer widening. "_ I'm _not. It doesn't seem like you know, so I'll be the one to deliver the news: this man gambled your hand-crafted bow. He spent ages telling me about the excellent quality of wood, the hours you spent perfecting it. I knew I had to have it. I won. He lost."_

 _The bow in question - along with its quiver of arrows - was leaned up against the wood of the bar, next to where her feet had been while she was sitting. Fallon reached for it now, stringing an arrow and pointing it directly at his face without a second's hesitation._

 _He was close enough for it to brush his nose, which was twisted up in rage._

 _Fallon, acutely aware of the fact that she was just barely sixteen years old and very afraid, said, "A dead man can't own anything."_

 _"Such a sharp tongue for such a pretty face. A shame." For a person with an arrow in his face, he was surprisingly calm._

 _It took a moment for Fallon to realize that the entire tavern had gone silent. Everyone was waiting for her reply, and she was never one to disappoint. "The real shame will be your blood on my arrow, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make," she replied evenly. "Now I'll cut you a deal: leave, and I won't kill you."_

 _The wicked smirk on his face turned into a victorious smile. "Just the words I was waiting to hear. Barkeep, did you hear that? This_ child _has threatened my life. Not exactly a person you want in your tavern, I assume? The deal between myself and this man was fair. Hers is not."_

 _The woman behind the bar, who at first had looked sympathetically at Fallon toward the beginning of the evening, then seemed to realize what was happening, and pointed to the door. "You. Out."_

 _He was holding his hand out tauntingly. In the room's silence, Fallon felt like a good majority of the room was on his side, not hers. If she made a move against them, they would be calling for_ her _blood. Seething, silent, she dropped her stance, removed the arrow, and swung the quiver from the floor over her shoulder. Then she handed him the bow._

 _"The arrows, my lady?"_

 _"The deal didn't include the arrows. Enjoy the bow. I hope your enemy snaps it in half when she impales you through the middle."_

 _"She?"_

 _She let out a humorless laugh. "It'll be a woman. I'm sure of it."_

 _With that, Fallon stalked out the door, devising a plot to strangle Smee in his sleep. It would be easy. The men's quarters were down the hall from hers, and she could quietly open the door and creep through the gently swaying hammocks until she found him. She'd burn that stupid red hat in front of him and wrap her hands around his neck, watching as he sputtered for air and -_

 _"That was awesome!"_

 _Alexander. He hadn't said anything since the incident with Smee, and she had forgotten he was even there. How someone could be so useless was beyond her._

 _Fallon turned. "What, the part where I lost? Yeah, awesome."_

 _"No, that you stood up to him. The way you were glaring at him...even I was a little scared."_

 _Something told her it didn't take much to scare him. "I wasn't going to let some man take what's mine."_

 _"So what?" Alexander beamed as bright as the sun, which was a little odd in the dark of night. "Where do you live? I'll walk you there. Not that you couldn't take care of yourself without me, but -"_

 _"Look," Fallon said flatly.. "I get what you're trying to do. I really do. But I don't have friends, and I sure as hell don't need them. You saw what he did, right? For a second, I thought he might've gambled_ me _."_

 _"That's a little harsh, don't you think?" he asked with a frown._

 _"No." She shook her head. "It's not. I'm not here to make friends. I'm here on a mission that has nothing to do with you. So, nice to meet you, but I'll see you around, Alexander."_

 _As she walked away, he called after her. "You'd be a lot more beautiful if you were nicer!"_

 _Fallon shouted something over her shoulder to him that would've made Killian proud, and left him standing in the weak light emanating from the tavern windows._

 _Friends betrayed you. Friends weren't really friends at all, in her experience._

 _And when she made it back to the_ Jolly Roger _and began her search for a piece of wood for a new bow, Fallon made a silent vow never to trust any of Killian's men again. It'd only get her killed in the end._

* * *

"Adeline?"

She shook her head to rid it of the memory and focused back on the situation at hand: at some point in her zone-out, Felix had taken what she called Henry Duty (sit with him and try to convince him that Neverland wasn't so bad and he'd like it here if he tried) and Pan had joined her instead.

"What?" she replied through gritted teeth.

"Some of our newcomers have decided to pay a visit to Dark Hollow to capture my shadow. They believe it will help them escape."

"Will it?" There were dark circles beneath her eyes, which she brushed her fingers over absently as she spoke.

"Possibly."

"And what am I supposed to do about it?"

He raised an eyebrow. "I thought that would be obvious: put a stop to it."

She fixed him with an incredulous stare, debating asking him if he had a head injury. "What the hell makes you think I'll be able to do anything about it? You're the master of shadows in this place, not me."

"I have a theory."

Adi could name a few of his other theories - they weren't exactly promising. "A theory that might be wrong."

"Trust me, Adeline," Pan said.

 _I'm tired of trusting you_.

She had trouble believing it, especially because she had never once encountered a shadow in her entire life. All she knew of them was what she'd read in the book about the island back in Pan's cabin about four years ago.

Something heavy and dark swirled through her mind, confused and angry.

"Why?" she demanded. "What's the point of using me to do all these things that you could very well do alone? All I do is fight you and refuse to trust you, so what do you have to gain?"

Pan's face broke out into an amused smile, like he'd been expecting her to say that. "I need someone powerful. And there you were, an intelligent, angry little spitfire with a pre-made vendetta against half of the people that would come after Henry once we got him. You were the perfect candidate."

"Wait...you knew they were coming?" Adi asked, frowning, as the information raked daggers over her skin.

"Oh, Adeline, I know everything. You believe I'm merely improvising, but really, I'm the one with all the control. There's no reason to distrust me, I assure you."

His assurance was not the most comforting thing Adi could've received. She clenched her hands into fists. It would be impossible for even him to predict what Henry's family would do that far in advance.

You can't see the future in a place where time stands still.

"There are a lot of reasons to distrust you, but I'm more worried about the safety of my brothers than I am about the truth to what you're telling me. I'll go, Pan, but if I fail to stop them from capturing your shadow, it's your fault, not mine."

Then Adi visualized the location of Dark Hollow - according to the map, in the very northern tip of the island, divided evenly between the east and west territory - in her mind and teleported there, leaving Pan a word away from chastising her.

Her eyes were closed when she arrived. The air was hot, more humid than the island in its days of sun, heavy like she was standing inside cotton.

Everything was bathed in a blazing crimson light. Brittle and black trees stripped of life arched up into the red sky, blocking out all outside sources of light. Adi shivered despite the heat, not because she was cold, but because the place was unsettling – she couldn't shake the sensation that she was being watched.

On edge, she nocked an arrow but kept her bow down. It would probably fly right through a shadow (she thought of the black outlines of people Pan used to make her fight and figured he made it easier on her by making them solid instead of transparent), but the illusion of defense gave her comfort.

The bushes off to her left rustled. Adi whirled around, raising her bow out of instinct at the intruders. For one second, there was silence. And then Neal burst through the branches into the blood red light, followed closely by Emma and Killian. Both held lanterns, but the wind choked out the flames the moment they entered.

"Welcome to Dark Hollow," Adi said in a mocking tone. The tip of her arrow was directed toward Neal, who froze and pivoted to face her.

"Adi," he said carefully. "What are you doing?"

"The girl has a talent for arriving in places where she isn't needed, mate." Killian shot him a fake smile filled with obvious tension and a wink. "I find it easiest to pretend she isn't here."

Adi rolled her eyes. "Don't think I won't shoot you."

"The Fallon I know wouldn't do that," Killian replied offhandedly while searching in his coat for something.

"See, _Hook_ , there's your problem. You're thinking of sister dearest, who would do anything for you, who worshipped you. But unfortunately for you, I'm not her."

He cocked an eyebrow. "Aren't you?"

"Sharing blood doesn't constitute a familial bond," she replied steadily. "So, yeah, you bet your leathery ass I'll shoot you."

"All threats aside," Emma shot the siblings a pointed look. "Are we supposed to just sit here and wait for Pan's shadow to show up?"

 _Your guess is as good as mine_.

"Yep," Neal said as he fished around in his bag, producing a coconut chopped in half with holes poked all across the top, a strange tool if Adi had ever seen one. "All we have to do is light the candle. The shadow is drawn to it. If it gets close enough, the flame will suck it in, we put the lid on, and it's trapped."

As if she were one of them, Adi contributed easily to the conversation. "You forgot to mention the fact that shadows don't particularly enjoy being caged. Something as simple as a coconut will not hold a dark being like Pan's shadow."

In truth, she had no clue what she was talking about. But if it convinced them, it didn't matter.

Emma stared at the archer. "Why the hell should we believe a word you're saying?"

Adi shrugged. "You don't have to."

"She's right," Neal admitted. "We do need to be careful. All we have to do is light that candle."

"Well that's all fine and good, except for one thing. Our lanterns went out," Killian said as he set his unlit lamp on a nearby fallen log. "How the devil are we gonna light that bloody thing?"

 _I can think of a way, but I'm not doing you any favors just yet._

Grinning, Neal flipped a lighter from his pocket open and shoved it mockingly in the pirate's face. "Welcome to the twenty-first century."

Emma held the candle up for him to light as he attempted to spark the lighter, but the oncoming wind spit out the fire.

Both Neal and Killian started fighting over the lighter, or the candle, or some other trivial thing Adi couldn't be bothered to pay attention to. She tapped her foot against the maroon dirt and pursed her lips at their immaturity.

She turned just in time to hear the roar of an oncoming being: the black outline of a person, golden eyed and hazy around the edges, exactly like her old training targets. Emma drew her sword and Adi an arrow; the two stood side by side with weapons drawn.

And then, because the universe seemed to have a personal vendetta against Adi, two more appeared.

"Guys, we really don't have time for this!" Emma shouted against the suddenly strong wind. "That's Pan's shadow."

"What about the other ones?" Killian half-screamed.

"It's controlling them," Adi yelled, lowering her bow and holding her free hand out in an attempt to magically get the shadows to do as she willed.

Pan said that they would, right? He had a theory, right?

The shadow didn't get the memo about listening to her.

Even with her eyes squeezed shut in concentration, she could still hear the loud scrambles and shouts of multiple fights paired with the adults' voices strained against the hot wind. She fought harder for her magic to prevail.

She was in the midst of throwing every curse she knew at Pan and his multitude of incorrect theories when everything went very still very suddenly. Adi dared to open her eyes, knowing it wasn't her that had caused it.

The first thing she saw, much to her amusement, was the forms of all three of them in crumpled heaps on the ground. The second was the coconut, clutched safely in Emma's hand like a lifeline. The third was what was she _didn't_ see: the shadows.

"Okay, let me get this straight." Adi blinked. "You managed to capture one of the strongest beings on this island...in a coconut. And the others just...decided to go away?"

They hauled themselves to their feet, but she didn't feel threatened. In fact, she even left her bow on her shoulder. All three were breathless and panting.

"I told you not to underestimate us." Emma shrugged. "Now we get to deal with you." She turned to the two men, both of whom were slightly pale. "We should capture her. Use her as leverage against Pan."

Adi tried to contain her laughter. "Please. You couldn't capture me if you tried."

The blonde cocked her head to the side. "Wanna bet?" She reached forward to grasp the teenager by the shoulder, who didn't move. Despite the magic she felt trailing through Emma, Adi knew that there was nothing she would be able to do that Adi couldn't stop.

Something strange happened when she touched Adi: magic flowed through her and settled into her body, making her skin tingle.

"I think," Emma said as she took a step back, "I temporarily took away her magic."

Adi had to suppress a snicker, but she could play along. She loved a good game. In fact, she was playing multiple at this very moment, and winning a number of them.

Holding out her hand, she shook it like she was expecting something to appear there. When nothing happened, she theatrically widened her eyes and grabbed one of the daggers at her waist to point at Emma. "What did you do to me?"

She smirked. "Now you're just like the rest of your so-called brothers."

Faking anger, she waved her weapon in Emma's face. "I know what you're planning. It's not going to work."

"Actually, you don't have a clue what we're planning. I have a proposition for you, Adi. I know you're starting to lose trust in Pan. You're seeing him for what he really is - a monster. It's easy to give in, but you could be a hero, if you'd just help us."

Incredulous, Adi stared at her and said, "That's the point, Emma: I don't _want_ to be a hero. Why would I ever trade my whole life to betray my brothers by helping the same people I've been trained to fight?"

"Because you don't want to kill an innocent boy for purely selfish reasons."

 _They don't understand that he won't die, do they? That's what Pan told me, and I'd like to believe he's telling the truth. He must have been_.

"How terrible it must be," Adi replied softly, quoting something she remembered from a long time ago. "To love something death can touch."

"Death can touch your so-called brothers. It can touch Pan, and it can touch you."

The words struck a chord. "You might like to think you're some profound gift to the world because they call you the Savior, but Emma, you and I both know you don't have a clue what you're doing."

 _Neither do I, but that's beside the point._

"I managed to capture both you and Pan's shadow in less than five minutes," Emma said with a confident grin.

"Well, you're half right." Adi mirrored her expression, mock saluted the group, and vanished on the spot.

All three made various noises of horror upon seeing the vacant space where Adi had been. One moment there, and the next - a whoosh of wind later - gone.

"You said you stopped her magic!" Neal accused.

Emma sputtered, "I thought I did."

"Honestly, I don't think you can do something like that." Killian sighed, running a hand down his face. "She lives for tricks. This is all a game to her, and she and Pan are about to play the winning move."

* * *

Truth be told, when she panicked and teleported away, Adi had no idea where she was going. All she did was think of a place in the woods a little north of camp and went there.

And because she had a distinct lack of luck in every realm that existed, the first thing she saw was Pan standing beside Henry. Immediately, Adi slipped behind a nearby tree to listen. Disloyal, perhaps, considering they were on the same side, but when she remembered all the secrets he was keeping, she forgave herself for it.

"How is she?" Henry asked.

 _She?_ Adi was the only girl on the island, save for the adults, and Henry didn't even know they were there.

Daring to lean forward, she glanced past Henry's short, plaid figure to the splotch of white on the ground. When the boy shifted his weight, she saw: a young girl, maybe a year or two younger than Adi, pale as the blankets she was tucked into, her eyes squeezed shut in pain as she struggled out a series of weak coughs.

Pan stood up. "I fear she's getting worse, Henry."

So she was sick? A hidden, ill girl. Adi was overcome with the sudden urge to strangle Pan. She had to dig her nails into the tree bark in front of her to stop herself from interrupting. The girl had now relaxed and closed her eyes, as if attempting to sleep despite the conversation happening right above her.

A pause. Then Pan turned around, and before she could hide behind the tree or disappear, he smiled. Not a nice one, but one that clearly read _I'm-going-to-kill-you-when-I-get-the-chance_. "You can come out now, Adeline."


	22. Lies of Omission

**3.22 | Lies of Omission**

"I am the sand in the bottom half of the hourglass;  
I try to picture me without you but I can't -  
cause we could be immortals,  
just not for long, for long."  
Immortals - Fall Out Boy

* * *

IF ADI WROTE a list of all the impulsive, idiotic decisions she had ever made, there wouldn't be enough paper in the universe to fit them all.

Trying to look like her arrival had been planned so as not to raise Henry's suspicions, Adi moved away from the tree with a blank expression on her face, attempting to pretend like she wasn't dying to scream at Pan.

Henry, however, was not focused on her - which was good, because he probably would've been able to spot the tension between the two from the death glare Pan was fixing her with. "So I save magic, and she'll be okay?"

"Yes, but more than that. If you save magic, you save us all - Adeline and Slightly and Felix and Tootles and Devon and Chris and all the others. To do it, you have to truly believe."

It was a wonder how Henry still trusted Pan about the whole magic-saving thing. The idea was almost laughable. Perhaps it was because Henry didn't know Pan the way she did, but Adi would've called his bluff a long time ago.

She supposed it was a good thing that the Truest Believer was still a child.

"I believe," Henry decided, then looked up at Pan with hope sparking in his eyes.

"Good, because we don't have much time." As if sensing that the conversation was over, both boys turned to look at Adi. "Henry, I'm sure you know your way back to camp by now? We aren't too far, and I need to speak with Adeline alone for a moment, if you don't mind."

Henry, looking nervously between them, nodded. The compound was relatively close – just a little bit south. Even he could make it.

By the time his footfalls had faded into the brush, Adi rounded on Pan, unable to manage anything other than a, "What the hell?"

"What happened with my shadow?"

She struggled between responding and decking him. "They got it, obviously."

"I thought you didn't like to be underestimated, so I gave you the benefit of the doubt."

"Well, apparently, you know everything that's gonna happen, so it must've been for a reason. Anyway, back to this." She waved her hand around the clearing. "What _is_ this?"

Pan held up his hand in what she supposed was a calming gesture, but it only made her angrier. "Everything I've had you do, everything I have and haven't told you, has been part of the plan. It's all going to pay off in the end. You heard Henry - he wants to save us."

"He wants to save _magic_ ," Adi fired back. "Not us. Have you even told him the consequences yet?"

"I'm going to, Adeline; don't rush. What happened to your faith in me?" He stepped closer to her.

She stared evenly back at him. "I barely had any to begin with. What makes you so sure it's still there?"

"We can discuss it later, after the island has been saved. Then, we'll have all the time in the world to work out our issues. Hold on a little longer. It'll be okay, I promise." Pan said it so genuinely, she felt compelled to believe him. She wished she could. "Let's go back."

"If you don't mind, I'd like to speak to the girl," she replied, but it was not a request.

He turned, something like fear flashing across his face, but it quickly melted into a smile. "As you wish, love. I'll be back soon."

"I told you not to call me that," she muttered after him, though he probably couldn't hear. Once she and the girl were alone, she pursed her lips. "Who are you?"

"My name's Wendy. Wendy Darling." She had a soft British accent like Pan's, but her voice was far gentler and more timid, like she was afraid raising it over a certain octave would shatter her. "I've been here for quite some time."

"I have too," Adi said carefully, frowning. "How have we not met?"

Better yet, why were they only meeting now?

"Pan keeps my cage in the farthest part of the island from camp, in the western half. He doesn't want me seen by anyone."

"And why's that?"

Wendy gave a halfhearted cough. "I - I'm sick."

Adi snorted. "With what?"

"The dying island has made me ill."

"Lack of magic wouldn't make you sick like that," she replied skeptically. "Its magic is what's keeping me alive, and I'm just fine. Are you faking for Henry's sake or your own?"

The question seemed to catch her by surprise. She blinked, twisting her fingers around in her lap, before looking back up at the other girl with sad doe eyes, her lips pressed into a thin line. "Pan's forcing me to lie to Henry to convince him to save magic."

For both her sake and his - for everyone's.

"You do know he's not actually saving magic, right?"

"Yes," Wendy answered, nodding. Then she paused and tilted her head up to look at Adi. "Why do you care so much? You're on Pan's side - why don't you put me back in the cage where I belong?"

It was a valid question, but it still made Adi sigh. "From what I can tell, you're only obeying out of fear, not of your own will. Innocent people don't deserve to become collateral damage, no matter what. I sort of trust Pan, but your being here seems...excessive."

Wendy studied her curiously. "You love him?"

Adi couldn't help but roll her eyes. "Why does everyone keep thinking that?"

"You look at him differently. You understand him," she said simply. "I see a monster, someone with a soul dark as night, but you see something else."

"Yeah, because I'm a lot like him."

"No, not really." She shook her head. "If you were truly like him, you wouldn't be talking to me right now. Pan talks to me like I'm property - you're acting like we're friends."

Adi half smiled, and was about to reply but was cut off by the sound of approaching footsteps.

"I hope the two of you haven't become too close, because it's time for our little bird to get back to her cage." Pan was back with his signature grin.

Shifting her weight so she could look him in the eyes, Adi asked,"Why?"

"Why does she need to go back?" he clarified. "It'll all be clear once the island is saved, I promise. Like I told you, it's all part of the plan."

"The plan you still have yet to tell me about," she replied icily.

He reached forward to grasp her by the arm, his touch cool against her skin. "I know you don't have faith, and that's fine, but please, go with it a little while longer. We're nearly there."

She swallowed and turned back to Wendy. The girl, now sitting up, toyed with a strand of her matted blonde hair with her gaze trained on the ground, lip caught between her teeth. Adi couldn't help but notice how different they were from each other although they were in alarmingly similar situations: caged, apprehensive, confused.

"Do what you want. If this is how you want to play it, fine."

Pan took a step closer. "Let me take care of Wendy, and I'll see you back at camp."

Adi hesitated, glancing from the boy's rigid posture to the girl's fear-filled eyes. Part of her wanted to mumble a _sorry_ to Wendy, but the other part of her compelled her to turn without another word and walk away. She swallowed the apology halfway off her lips and prayed Pan knew what he was doing.

* * *

 _Peter twisted a fraying thread on his shirt between his fingers. His food lay untouched in front of him; the only sign he had acknowledged its presence was the slight shift of each item, his one attempt to make it appear that he was mentally present._

 _"Peter, sit up." His mother reached over to smack him lightly on the arm._

 _Huffing a sigh, he straightened in his chair but said nothing. Across the table, his little brother stuck out his tongue at him. Peter had no doubt their father saw, but he went back to shoveling food into his mouth as if he hadn't noticed._

 _That was how it always was: Peter, disobedient and reprimanded; Rumple, disobedient and ignored._

At least he's got a stupid name like Rumplestiltskin, _Peter told himself as a small means of comfort._

 _As his mother and father went back to asking Rumple how his day was, what he learned, if any of his friends wanted to come over soon, Peter found himself growing bored. His little brother was mid-sentence when he abruptly stood without asking if he could be excused._

 _Affronted, his mother called after him, but Peter didn't turn around as he stepped outside and closed the door behind him._

 _No one followed him outside. They knew he'd come back. He always did._

 _It was part of his 'teenage phase,' as they called it: a few years of attitude and rebellion before he aged, settled down, matured. Peter was tired of hearing the phrase 'when you're older...' He didn't want to get older._

 _He was halfway through town where the shops bustled with life when he realized that he didn't want to return._

 _Would they even miss him if he never went back? Would they search for him? Worry? Or resign to their remaining golden child and forget about the other?_

 _Rumple probably wouldn't even notice that his old role model was gone._

 _Closing his eyes right in the middle of the town square, Peter breathed a loud exhale, imagining all of his frustration leaving with it._

 _Running was always an option. Run, not even daring to look back or think twice. Peter considered himself a talented liar, a stealthy thief; perhaps he could live that way, or challenge passerby to rigged games on the side of the road like the old homeless beggars did._

 _At nearly nineteen, he figured if he were to never return, he would have a pretty good chance of survival. He knew how to take care of himself. All he had to do was wait for night to fall - it wouldn't be long now - and the shopkeepers to make their last rounds. Then, he could sneak in and steal whatever he needed to help him._

 _Hesitation. The warmth of the setting sun suddenly felt icy on his shoulders. People were beginning to stare at him just standing there with a blank expression on his face. Although Peter was no stranger to them, he wasn't exactly friends with the townsfolk._

 _Any doubt he had erased when his eyes fell on a young couple, the man - no, boy - a year or two older than him and the girl a year or two younger, with a cloth bundle of a squirming child clutched tightly against her shoulder._

 _It was expected that he find a wife soon, begin his own family. Watching them, remembering that would soon be him, he began to feel ill._

 _And by nightfall, Peter had crouched in the alleyway outside the bakery, resigned to his decision to run, to hide, to get out while he still could._

 _Where he would go was still undecided. But he would survive, so long as it wasn't here_.

* * *

Slightly was midway through another one of his extremely fake stories that he told only for the thrill of everyone's eyes on him when the fire suddenly flared up in a rush of flames. Violet sparks emanated from it, twisting into the air and toward the Lost Ones faster than they could comprehend.

There was a pause in which the boys shared glances and confusion, and then every single one of them fell back, slumped over and still.

Adi, the only one still awake, knew immediately whose magic this was. She stood and drew an arrow, aiming it at the perimeter of camp. But her arms were unsteady, unsure, and the bow shook with her unease.

The Dark One was the first to enter and catch sight of Adi. He held a hand up to signal for the others behind him to halt. They filed into the clearing when she made no move to attack, but remained a considerable distance away from her.

As soon as they stopped, the Dark One waved his hand in her general direction before she could think to move. A heavy, leaden feeling settled into her, like paperweights had replaced her bones; it wasn't anything like the sleeping curse from before. This was still magic, but it brought a feeling that terrified her and made her heavy with powerlessness.

Adi attempted to teleport somewhere else, if only to throw them off enough to buy her time to figure something out, but it didn't work. That powerlessness shifted to panic to dread.

He had taken away her magic.

"It's temporary," the Dark One told her with an arrogance quite like Pan's. "It'll wear off eventually."

"Where's Pan?" Emma questioned, and after glancing around a second longer, "and Henry?"

Still fighting to compose herself, Adi struggled to flash her a confident smirk. "Neither of them are here. Lucky for you, I am."

"Adi?" A sudden voice asked with a controlled timidity. Tinkerbell, slouched behind Killian (both of whom she had only just noticed), was staring at her. A dagger was clutched in her hand, uncannily like the time they had first met.

Tink looked no different, save for the accusatory look she was sending her way. She of all people should've understood. The glare she was shooting, however, said otherwise.

"Tink," Adi said quietly, giving her a slight nod. "Sorry I haven't visited. Clearly I've missed a lot."

Tinkerbell scoffed.

"Might I ask what exactly all of you are doing here? I love a good chat, but we both have better things to be doing."

"Like what, hiding my son from me?" Emma rolled her eyes, brandishing her cutlass at Adi. "Where are they?"

In a gesture of surrender, Adi sighed and lowered her bow so that the arrow was still in its notch, but pointed at the ground. Emma raised an eyebrow and put down her blade as well.

"I don't know."

"How could you not know?"

She shrugged. "He didn't tell me. I came back, and he was gone. So was Henry."

Snow stepped forward, eyeing the girl cautiously. "And you didn't question it?"

"Oh, come on." Adi rolled her eyes. "I've always questioned his disappearances. But I'm used to him doing things behind my back, and I'm capable on my own."

"Why wouldn't he tell you where he was taking your prisoner?"

"He's not our - you know what, nevermind. I already told you, I don't know. Anything else, or can you get out so I can get back to the riveting story my friend was telling?" Adi spread her arms wide to motion to the collective forms of her sleeping brothers.

Neal was about to say something, but a disembodied voice from their left cried, "Help!"

It was soft, feminine, British. Adi recognized it immediately from not even an hour ago, but it made her nervous - Wendy knew what was going on. She could tell all of the adults and ruin everything. Not even Pan would be able to recover from that – half the plan was keeping them in the dark.

Emma and Neal sprinted into the woods and brought back a shaking Wendy not five minutes later. They draped a blanket over her shoulders and started firing questions at her. Apparently, Adi wasn't the only one who thought the girl knew something of value.

"- sorry. He never mentioned anything about a heart."

"She's lying," the Dark One spat through gritted teeth as he lunged forward with his sword pointed at her. Charming leapt forward, blocking the step toward Wendy. "She knows exactly where he is and exactly what he's doing."

"Is that true?" Neal asked.

Wendy shifted uncomfortably under the weight of their gazes, suddenly looking very nervous. "You don't understand."

Adi, who was standing a little behind Emma, got the feeling she was right: no one understood the deeper meaning behind what was going on with Wendy and Pan.

"You're helping Pan?" Snow whispered, appalled.

"He's keeping John and Michael alive. Only if I do as he says." By now, Wendy looked to be on the verge of tears.

Chewing on the inside of her cheek, Adi felt short of breath the longer she listened. She tuned them out, eyes trained on the fire. A weight settled into her stomach, heavier than the suppression of her magic. Adi's staying on Neverland was different - she was welcomed as a Lost One, and stayed out of desire rather than force. Wendy, however, was caged for what could've been years or even decades because she was nothing more than leverage for Pan. A prize. A tool.

What made her feel sick was the fact that it had been going on right underneath her nose, and she hadn't been the least bit suspicious.

"Pan told Henry that he needs his heart to save magic. It's a lie. He needs it to save himself and his island," Wendy said.

"What do you mean?" Killian asked from the back of the group.

"Pan's dying," Wendy replied softly. The words hung in the air for a moment. "He needs the heart of the Truest Believer to absorb the magic in Neverland. And once he does, he will be immortal. All powerful."

Wait. Pan had always described it as the _island_ dying. Was it only him? Did he string her along, putting her under the impression that _everyone_ was at risk? Perhaps him dying put the island in danger as well. Perhaps Adi had no reason to doubt even more.

Snow stepped toward the girl. "And what happens to Henry?"

"Well, it's a trade," she said simply. "When Pan lives, Henry will die."

Before Adi could stop them, the words slipped out. "What?" she hissed sharply, drawing the attention of the group back to her.

"Pan didn't tell you?" Wendy tilted her head to the side, her eyes wide like the child she was.

She shook her head. "No," she whispered, blinking as she struggled to understand. "He didn't. That's why he's been keeping so much from me - he knew I wouldn't help if I knew an innocent person would die."

"Then what did he tell you?" the Dark One asked.

"Henry was going to have to live here forever. As in, alive." Adi looked up at them all, true fear pooling in her sapphire eyes. "I shouldn't have believed him."

"Love makes even the smartest of people stupid," Snow pointed out.

Adi's head snapped up, her terror melting into anger. "I don't love him. How many times do I have to tell you?"

"It'd be a lot easier if you did," Wendy whispered, possibly to herself, but everyone heard her.

"Would it? Because it would probably mean that I'd listen to every single thing he says, and none of you would leave this island alive - easier for me, but not ideal for your survival."

"Love doesn't make you lose yourself," Snow said quietly. "You can still disagree with him even though you do."

What Adi found most irritating was that the princess was talking literally and not hypothetically.

"That's not what I meant," Wendy piped up, louder this time.

Carefully, as if abrupt motion would scare her away, Emma slowly turned to the shaking girl. "What do you mean?"

"Henry isn't the only person able to save the island. There is a second option."

The entire world - island - ground to a screeching halt as everyone simultaneously froze and turned to look at the girl. Beneath the weight of their gazes, Wendy shrunk into herself.

"A _what_?"

* * *

 _"What's someone so young doing out here so late?" A crackled, worn voice sliced into the still, silent night so abruptly that Peter flinched and nearly fell to the ground._

 _He was outside one of the shops, formulating a quick plan to quietly break in, take what he needed, and then run before the sun rose and exposed him. It had taken hours for the main square to clear out and for the last shop owner to go home, and he had sworn he was alone._

 _Heartbeat increasing far too quickly for his liking, Peter whipped his head to the left where he had heard it from the shadows. "What's it matter?" he asked, cursing his wavering voice._

 _The person laughed. "It doesn't, my boy. But I have something that may be able to help you."_

 _"How?" More than anything, he wished he had thought to bring a torch with him. "You don't even know me."_

 _"Oh, but you want what everyone does, don't you?"_

 _Though the person couldn't see, Peter arched an eyebrow. "And what's that?"_

 _"A way out."_

 _Silence. He counted four full seconds before he replied with carefully chosen words. "Everyone wants a way out - even you. What's your price? What makes you think I'll be able to pay it?"_

 _"I don't." They came closer, indicated by the rough sound of fabric tearing against the cobblestone. "I've spent my whole life tricking my way out of things. I'd keep at it, but I'm old. And it's your turn to see how the world shapes you. Put yourself to the test."_

 _It was a trick. It had to be some sort of trap, a ruse, anything. Somehow, though, Peter couldn't bring himself to run – something he couldn't place rooted him to the spot._

 _Without waiting for a reply, the person - of whom Peter couldn't determine a gender - reached over and fumbled to pick up his wrist. He flinched back, but they refused to let go until something cool was pressed into the palm of his hand. It was small, about the size of a silver coin._

 _"What is -" Peter began, but the person had already moved back. "Hey! What is this?"_

 _A hearty laugh echoed that rattled him to the bones. "Anywhere you'd like to go, it'll take you there. But be careful. Not everyone's as nice as me."_

 _"Wait -" he protested, clutching his fist tighter around the object, but there was a strange sound that sounded like cloth tearing, then hobbling footsteps, and then silence._

 _Too shaken to finish his plan of escape, Peter ran his fingers over the coin. Perhaps this had been a sign from the gods that he wasn't supposed to leave yet, or that something was wrong and he wasn't meant to leave just yet. He abandoned all thoughts of breaking into the shop, but the thoughts of escape were still very much prominent._

 _A few hours later, Peter gently pushed the door of his home open, cringing as it grated against the ground, and stepped inside. His brother, sitting at the kitchen table with a straw doll that their mother had made, looked up and smiled._

 _"Where'd you go?" It wasn't accusatory, merely a question, but it made his insides ache. It wasn't Rumple's fault he was the prized child._

 _"It doesn't matter now." He shook his head. "Look what I found. It's magic, see? It'll take us wherever we want to go, right away."_

 _In the light of day, the object looked exactly like the gold pieces they used as currency, but this was far more tarnished and copper, with a hole punched clean through the middle. Nothing was engraved on it, but it was covered in scratches and imperfections._

 _Rumple reached forward, eyes alight with naivety, and took it from Peter's hand to squint at it. "How does it work?"_

 _"I don't know, I haven't tried. I'm not even sure it'll work. But will you come with me?"_

 _There was a pause. Rumple looked up at his brother, then nodded. "Where will we go?"_

 _Peter considered, taking the coin back so he could twist it through his fingers. "There's a place I used to go in my dreams - a wonderful place - where you can fly and do anything you want and no one's ever there to tell you what to do. We could go, and no one would even miss us."_

 _Rumple looked ready to protest, but seemed to think better of it as he picked up his doll and got to his feet. "How do you think it works?"_

 _"Let's find out, Rumple." For a moment, the two boys stared at the coin as if their gazes alone would cause a set of instructions to appear out of thin air. Then, suddenly, Peter moved with the confidence of an experienced magician. One hand grabbed his brother's; the other held the coin up to his eye. "Take me to the island."_

 _Around them, the world changed. Peter felt a tug inside his abdomen. The ground shook as if an earthquake was rocking the entire world, and both fell to the floor._

 _Only, it wasn't the hard stone of their home: it was different - soft, gritty, warm, and unfamiliar._

 _Confused, Peter lifted his head and blinked in the blinding sunlight. The four walls of his home had disappeared and given way to a sandy beach surrounded by water on one side and trees on the other. A beautifully blue and cloudless sky spanned above them._

 _Grinning toothily, Rumple jumped to his feet. "You did it!"_

 _"Yeah, I did," Peter whispered, a smile tugging at his lips. "Come on, I want to see if I can find something."_

 _He led the way over to the nearest grove of trees, positive it was the same he used to climb in his dreams, the same ones that grew dust as easily as Peter breathed. Like in his dreams from years ago, they were the tallest on the island, the most dangerous, but the most valuable._

 _"What are they?"_

 _"Wait here, Rumple," Peter deflected the question, one hand already on the tree's lowest branch. "I'll be back quicker than you know it."_

 _And he began the ascent up the pixie dust tree, gritting his teeth as the bark tugged at his skin. Adrenaline fueled him the further he climbed; the higher the risk of falling and breaking his neck, the better he felt. Up here where he couldn't see his brother, all responsibility vanished._

 _On some of the tallest branches, disguised against the evergreen needles, lay a group of light green flowers that Peter knew held the dust: the beautiful, sparkling emerald magic of his dreams that let him soar, carefree, above the island and everything he knew._

 _Peter reached out for one of the flowers, a purple, multi-faceted thing and dipped his fingers in the middle. They came away cloaked in a dull green dust that sparkled brighter when it touched the air._

 _"I want to fly," he said, sprinkling a little over his head._

 _For a moment, he remained there, hanging onto the trunk, breathing in the dust as it settled into his hair and shoulders. That was strange. Usually, it lifted him up before he even had time to let go._

 _As he was about to release the tree so he could fly, something loud swished through the branches nearest him._

 _"Who's there?"_

 _No reply. Nervous, he clutched the tree as the noise returned and he repeated the question. Silence._

 _An odd shrieking filled the air, and Peter turned just in time to see the faint outline of a human body hovering right beside him. It was fuzzy around the edges, with fiercely glowing yellow eyes._

 _"Who are you?"_

 _Its voice was a thousand people speaking all at once. "I am the sole inhabitant of Neverland."_

 _"Can you help me, then?" Peter asked. "I want to fly - why can't I?"_

 _The being had no face, but if it did, it would be glaring. "Because you have to believe."_

 _"I do believe!"_

 _"You don't. Not when you don't belong here, and you are still stuck in your old life."_

 _"What's that mean?" Peter frowned. "I came here to get away from that."_

 _"Your brother did not. He only followed you here because you asked him to."_

 _The weight of the words was not lost on him. "So I need to let go of what's holding me back."_

 _The shadow disappeared into the pale daylight without another sound save for a shriek, and Peter was left to confirm his own theory and grapple for more dust before he descended._

 _He would belong. He had to._

 _Rumple was where Peter had left him not ten minutes ago, doodling patterns into the dirt with his finger. "Did ya get it?"_

 _"Yes," Peter replied carefully. "But when I tried to use it, it wouldn't work."_

 _"Why not?" Rumple stopped drawing to look up at him with confusion. The childish wonder he held almost made Peter reconsider his plan._

 _His brother sighed, stepping closer to him so that he towered over him, blotting out the sun. "Because you're here with me. I can't belong if I'm still with you, Rumple."_

 _"We'll go somewhere else," he insisted. "The coin can take us wherever we want. That's what you said. Let's leave, and go somewhere we can be together. That's what matters, right?"_

 _"I wish it was that easy." Peter ran a hand through his hair. "But here, I'll never be the brother you need me to be. There's only one way I'll be able to fly."_

 _Perhaps it would've been easier if Rumple understood, and hated his brother for it. But the boy looked up at Peter with such clueless bewilderment that he faltered. "How?"_

 _"By letting go of the one thing that's holding me back. You."_

 _As the word left his lips, the shade from earlier swooped in and grasped the ten-year-old by the back of his cloak and tugged him backward._

 _"Help!" Rumple cried, reaching for Peter, but his brother stepped backwards, out of his grasp. "Help me, Peter! What's happening?"_

 _"There's only one way I can truly be free," Peter whispered. "You need to go, Rumple."_

 _The shade continued to yank the boy back, but he resisted. "Peter, you can't let it take me!" He managed to grab his brother by the shoulder, but he wrenched himself from Rumple's grip and let the shadow fly away with him, screaming._

 _Tears prickled at his eyes, but the deed was done. Peter sparkled with an ethereal green glow as he watched his brother disappear, wondering if Rumple would have liked the feeling of flying._

* * *

"Pan told me there's another way, a second option." Wendy tugged the blanket closer around her shoulders. "The one that says if anyone is to love Pan, their heart will work the same as the Truest Believer's."

Why had Pan told Wendy this? Was she his confidant when no one else on the island was allowed to know his secrets? A large portion of Adi felt affronted that Pan had informed a prisoner of this rather than one of his trusted accomplices.

It was one of many lies. Lies of omission were lies all the same.

A weighted silence fell between the group as they all debated between looking at Wendy or Adi. She made the decision for them when she spoke, causing them to swivel around to her. "No one could love someone like Peter Pan, much less me." There was a flat tone to her voice.

Something seemed to occur to Regina. "Adi, how did my curse break on you?"

 _You mean the one that erased all my memories and stole me from my home, making me your prisoner in more realms than one?_

"To be honest, I'm not really sure." She put her weight on her right leg and crossed her arms. It was not easy for her to recall the day her memory returned, especially by reminder of the queen.

Snow seemed to catch onto Regina's same train of thought; her eyes lit up, which made Adi nervous. "You need to tell us exactly what happened. This is important."

"Uh, okay." Adi chewed on her lip. "I was training with Pan. Killing things like he always tried to get me to. And we got in a fight - like usual. But..." The sentence trailed off as she remembered.

"Did he kiss you?" Snow asked, stepping toward her.

"How did you know that?" Adi went pale. "You know what? It doesn't matter. It was just a distraction for whatever it was he did to restore my memory."

Snow smiled, wide and true. "Do you realize what this means?"

"That you're excited about something that meant literally nothing?"

"No, Adi, it meant everything."

She scrunched up her nose. "Gross."

"Not like that." Snow shook her head. "You don't understand the implications: the fact that the curse broke that way means it was unintentional. It only means one thing."

"That you're insane?" Adi questioned, tilting her head to the side. "I could've figured that out without your help, thanks."

"That you love each other."

Adi had to wait a second to think of an appropriately caustic response that didn't involve punching the princess in the face. "Out of all the things I've heard, that's probably the worst anyone's ever said to me. Seriously."

"She's telling the truth," Regina said. "Not even someone like Pan could destroy a curse that powerful without true love's kiss."

The words were awful to hear out loud, and Adi wanted to gag. But it meant something else, too: he never _meant_ to restore her memories. He couldn't have known at that point that the two of them were supposed to be in love. It also meant that it had been out of his control.

"Okay, suppose you're telling the truth," she relented, shaking some hair from her eyes. "Then what? Even if it's 'meant to be' or some other fateful crap I don't believe in, it doesn't change the fact that I don't love him."

"Yet," Neal said. "It's there, whether you act on it or not."

Adi's insides churned. Her hands were becoming unbearably clammy, and she had to ball them into fists to stop herself from gagging. The world was upside down, spinning further and further out of reach while another person told her what she was going to have to do, how she was supposed to feel.

"So I don't have a choice?"

"Not really, no."

 _No one decides my fate but me._

"No," Adi spat, spinning around to motion at her brother, who hadn't spoken a word and was leaned casually against a tree beside Tinkerbell. "Love is always a choice. I made a choice not to love him, even if he's my family. I can make a choice not to love Pan. And I won't; I don't."

Snow placed her hand on the archer's shoulder, who didn't flinch away. "Are you sure about that? Think about it. It's in the way you talk, the way you are, even when he isn't around. How can you not see it?"

"You're wrong." Adi shook her head. "What's that saying? Love is patient, love is kind? I'm not patient, I'm not kind. There isn't room for love in me. Just a lot of hatred and darkness. And once you let that darkness inside, it doesn't come out."

Regina stared the girl in the eyes for the first time, blue on brown. "I used to be like you. Hateful and angry and frustrated with life. I took advantage of my power in the same ways you do. But I learned to control it, and I even found people I love."

"Unfortunately, I'm not you," she pointed out. "And I already have people I love: my brothers. _They're_ my family, and I love them more than anything. They're who I fight for. No matter what you say, you can't make me love him. That's a choice I have to make on my own. And I refuse."

* * *

 _The island - Neverland - had a strange skull-shaped rock off the coast. Inside, Peter found a gigantic, glowing hourglass filled with dust that was ever so slowly trickling down. "What is this place? I don't remember seeing it in my dreams."_

 _The shadow that called itself the Neverland Shade, was waiting for him inside. Upon his arrival, it flew above his head in a taunting manner, like it was making sure Peter knew who really held the power in this place. "That's because it didn't exist. It was created when you made the decision to stay."_

 _"A giant skull," Peter said through a grin. "It's glorious! But what's the hourglass for?"_

 _"It represents the magic fueling your youth, the magic allowing you to stay here. When it runs out, your youth will be taken, and you and the island will die."_

 _"But I thought I was going to stay young forever."_

 _"Neverland is a place for children to visit in their dreams, not a place for them to live. You were the first to try and stay, and in doing so, you're breaking the rules."_

 _"Any rule can be broken," Peter insisted. "There has to be a way to fuel the magic forever. I will find it. I believe."_

 _"There are ways," the shadow told him carefully. "But you won't be able to find either."_

 _"What are they?" he said, suddenly interested. He turned to face the shadow, which was hovering in line with the top half of the hourglass. It didn't answer, but he kept going anyway. "I know I will be able to find them. I won't fail. I believe."_

* * *

 **ok sorry but I seriously had to change pan being gold's father – that whole thing was just super weird to me and kinda unnecessary. anyway. hopefully I made my version believable and logical – let me know if I did alright!**

 **thanks so much for reading :D**


	23. A Fair Sacrifice

**3.23 | A Fair Sacrifice**

"You and I walk a fragile line;  
I have known it all this time,  
but I never thought I'd live  
to see it break."  
Haunted - Taylor Swift

* * *

DESPITE HER REFUSAL to comply, Henry's family seemed hell bent on getting Adi to be the one to save their son. She didn't miss the irony - after all, she was the one who had first captured him on Neverland.

She sat on one of the logs by the fire, her bow now stowed over her shoulder, half listening to what the adults were arguing about. They didn't seem to care what she thought, even if the decision was ultimately hers to make. The spell removing her magic weighed heavily on her, hindering not only her will to fight but also her will to argue.

It didn't help when her brother decided to use this time to start a conversation. Killian should've known better, but he stood next to her, towering over her.

"At what point did you choose them as brothers over me?"

His voice was quiet. If she didn't know better, she'd think he sounded a little hurt.

Adi didn't bother to look up at him, training her eyes on the fire and watching as it slowly burned out. "It's more of a question of why than when. _They_ didn't abandon me."

Although she had abandoned them once before, he didn't need to know that.

"Yet," Killian said, sipping what she supposed was his rum. Adi was overcome with the urge to snatch his flask and hurl it halfway across the island. "Don't put too much trust into them. They've killed more of my men than I can count."

"Like I trusted you?" she asked, her voice uncharacteristically soft. "Don't pretend like there's a point to talking about this. Nothing will change. I've made up my mind about what kind of person you are."

"Why? Because Pan told you, and you need to listen to him? Because you love him?" The words were taunting enough to strike a chord inside Adi, and she stood and turned to Killian with murder in her eyes faster than he could blink.

She spit her reply in his face. "You of all people should know that I don't bend easily. Do you really think I'd stoop so low as to let Pan bully me into believing things that aren't actually true? Do you really think I'm so helpless that I can't think for myself?"

"I think it's amazing that even after the boy has lied and manipulated and kept things from you, you're still able to trust him, Fallon." Killian looked more carelessly upset than angry, while she was blazing with fury.

"It's him or you, and my choice is pretty clear," Adi hissed, and then, sensing that if she didn't walk away now, it'd end far worse than necessary, used every ounce of self-control she possessed to turn away.

She was tired. Tired of being manipulated and played for no reason other than Pan's love for games. Tired of constantly being told what to do, even in a place where she had supposed freedom. Tired of the constant stream of lies. Tired of it all.

The other half of Henry's family was still in a heated discussion about what they were going to do. At any other time, Adi might've been amused, happy even, but with her magic gone and them discussing her fate, she wasn't laughing.

"We can't force her to sacrifice herself." Snow.

"It's not like she deserves to live after what she's done to Henry." Regina.

"She said it herself, she doesn't love him -" Emma

"The hell's she know about love anyway?" Regina.

"Shouldn't we be worried about -" Charming, at least until Adi interjected.

"Hey!" she said, cutting through their voices. "It's bad enough that I'm stick here with you, but would you please discuss this like adults instead of arguing like children?"

"Fine," Emma said coldly. "How do you suggest we solve this problem?"

The answer was glaringly simple, they were simply too stubborn to acknowledge it. "Easy. Henry."

"Preferably _without_ killing our son," she said, exasperated. "You said it yourself, you'd like to minimize the amount of casualties. That includes Henry."

"That includes me as well," Adi said, impatient. "Besides, what makes you so sure I'd help you? My heart won't even work. You take me to Pan, and he can get rid of the spell removing my magic so we can kill you and take Henry's heart ourselves."

Snow looked crestfallen. "Because you aren't a bad person, and you know it."

"Aren't I? I used to kill for sport. Everything I do is out of self-interest, so what makes you so believe I'll willingly sacrifice myself in the place of a boy I don't give a damn about?"

"You do give a damn about him," she replied. "Enough to make you hesitate to kill him. The Fallon Jones I remember only killed with reason. She couldn't take my life without a true motive. Remember that?"

Adi leveled her with an even stare. "You're giving me motive enough right now."

Regina, too, seemed to be growing aggravated the longer they remained here. "Why does it matter? She -" she gestured at Adi - "doesn't have any magic. Take her weapons, and she has no way left to fight. Then we find out where Pan has Henry and bring her there. We've left him with that monster for far too long now; I want my son back."

"First we have to figure out where they are." Emma frowned as she looked around the camp where the unconscious Lost Boys still lay.

Here and there, a hand, an eyelid twitched, but no one moved. Stalling would up the chances of any of them waking up, but Adi wasn't willing to balance her life on the possibility of one of them coming to in the next five minutes.

Wendy spoke up from where she still sat, blanket around her shoulders like a downy cape. "Pan took Henry to Skull Rock. But you haven't got much time."

Adi hated herself for not thinking of it: the skull-shaped room with the hourglass that slowly counted down to Neverland's - or was it Pan's? - demise. Now that she knew, the answer was so obvious she wanted to hit herself.

"Then we stay behind," Charming decided, nodding toward his wife. It was then that Adi remembered the healed dreamshade wound that bound him to the island. Even if by some miracle the rest of his family managed to get off the island alive, he'd be dead before they crossed into the next realm.

Emma stood. "You don't need to stay behind." There she was again, with that infuriatingly inconvenient habit she had of refusing to leave anyone. Adi knew it would only get her and the ones she loved killed.

"He's right," Snow said. "Get him home, tell him we love him."

They decided to split up: Snow and Charming to Dead Man's Peak, because apparently if they figured out a way to leave, the Dark One could cure the poison; Killian and Tink to stay and guard the Lost Ones; Regina, Emma, Baelfire, and the Dark One to drag Adi to Skull Rock to confront Pan.

Adi was glad she wasn't going to be there when the boys woke up to a pirate and a fairy in charge of them with their leader about to die and the adults who infiltrated their home about to force her into dying to save Henry.

The boat that she and Pan had used all that time ago to visit the rock was missing. She figured he had probably taken it, but it left them lacking an important component in crossing the water.

"If you would kindly take this spell off, I could make us a boat. Unless you're inclined to swim," Adi said dryly when they reached the shore.

Regina shook her head. "I can do it."

The one she conjured was more modern-looking than the one Pan used, but more stable, which Adi was grateful for. Emma eyed her warily as she sat next to her.

Obviously, Henry's family was under the impression that at some point between now and their arrival at Skull Rock, she would realize how utterly in love she was with Pan and that she was, in fact, willing to die to save both him and Henry. But a boat ride wasn't going to make her fall in love.

Or maybe they felt inclined to save both her and Henry, and in turn let Pan die. Without Snow present, Adi didn't doubt Regina would kill both her and Pan. After all, Adi wasn't exactly innocent, and it wasn't like she had strong enough familial ties to Killian to warrant saving her. In their eyes, she was just as bad a villain as Pan.

Fire flickered from within the skull, sending waves of shimmering light through the gaping mouth hole their rowboat was about to enter.

Adi couldn't help but feel that this kind of fire wasn't her friend.

"So," she said into the quiet that was broken only by the gentle splash of water against the rowboat. "Because you think I love Pan, you're willing to have me give him my heart instead of Henry? And I'll die instead? You _heroes_ have a seriously twisted sense of morality."

Regina gave her a faint smile. "I said something like that you a long time ago."

"I'm not a hero."

"What about your happy ending?"

Adi rolled her eyes. "I don't believe in 'happy endings.' Either you die early enough to still be considered happy – and in turn leave sadness behind when those who loved you miss you – or you die late enough for sadness to have touched you at every opportunity. No matter what, you either die in sadness or leaving sadness."

"That's a morbid way of looking at it," Emma said as the boat glided beneath the shelter of the skull's mouth, shrouding her in an orange glow.

"It's realistic," Adi answered. "So the question must be asked: are you selfish enough to be the one to leave, or are you selfless enough to take on the burden of sadness yourself?"

For a moment, the adults seemed to mull over the words. Adi was surprised to find that they were considering what she'd said to be valid – she thought that the only thing they would actually listen for would be the words _oh wait, I do love him_.

But the moment the rowboat pulled up against the bank of Skull Rock, all mention of happy endings – or the lack of – seemed to be forgotten.

"These are Henry's shoes." Emma pointed to a set of footprints imprinted in the sand as the five of them stepped onto the bank. "I recognize them."

"You know the pattern of his shoes? That's borderline creepy." When all she got was an eye roll, Adi shrugged. "Come on, I've been wearing these shoes for like four years and I'm still not sure what their prints look like."

Regina, looking ready to push her into the water, muttered, "We don't have time for this."

Emma was more focused on Henry's apparent shoe prints. Bent over with her eyes squinted, she followed them all the way to a set of stone stairs that led into an ominously dark space that spun off somewhere above their heads. Faint voices echoed through the stairwell. "Wendy was right. They're here."

Just as she moved to start up the steps, an invisible force pushed her back and she flew head over heels into the sand inches away from Adi, who didn't flinch.

Neal rushed to her aid, frantic, as he helped her stand and looked back at the mysteriously barricaded steps. "Are you okay?"

"I think so." Emma brushed the sand and dirt off of herself. "What was that?"

Cautiously, as if the air would burn her, Adi raised a hand to where the supposed force field was. Her fingers passed through without a problem. She shrugged and began climbing the stairs. "I guess Pan cast a protection spell."

"That only you can get through?" Regina asked, fingers twitching. "There has to be a way to break it."

Adi inspected the line drawn in the sand and glanced back up the stairs. The voices had grown louder, and she could almost recognize them, but she was afraid to interrupt Pan if he was close to getting the heart.

Something bright, hot, and dangerous flared across the other side of the protection spell. Adi turned in time to see Regina lowering her hand after what she supposed was throwing fire at the barrier in an attempt to break it.

Everyone was flinching back, throwing angry words at her, but Adi crossed her arms. "Fire isn't the answer to everything."

"You seem to think so."

"I have this." She lifted her bow off her shoulder and held it up for them to see, a teasing grin playing at the edges of her mouth. "Alongside my stellar intelligence and unending charm."

There was a pause in which Adi debated between staying to deter them from getting past the protection spell and seeing if Pan had succeeded yet. She studied the the group, daring any of them to say something to keep her there.

Emma, arms crossed over her chest, studied her with a frown. "Have you changed your mind?"

"What, about giving Pan my heart instead?" She laughed. "You're even crazier than I thought you were. Ten minutes wasn't going to make me love him, and you're delusional if you think that's how life works. Good luck getting past the spell."

Something about the subtle hope in the Savior's tone set off a pulse of fury inside her - she, along with the rest of them, didn't care about Adi. They wanted her to be the secret weapon, the atomic bomb, the arsenal they arrived with when they ambushed Pan and took Henry back.

The room Adi entered was wide and empty save for the gigantic golden hourglass in the center, its fine dust significantly lower in the bottom portion of the glass this time around. Skull Rock looked no different from her last visit, save for the forms of Peter Pan and Henry Mills a few feet away from the hourglass.

They were so deep in conversation that they barely noticed Adi walk in, her footsteps nearly silent against the large expanse of the stone floor.

And then Pan glanced up to see her there, bow clutched in a white knuckle grip, a deep set anger in her stride. A flicker of shock struck his face as he attempted to collect himself enough to send Henry to sit by himself in one of the alcoves in the deeper part of the cave. He could likely hear, and was most likely listening, but she couldn't find it in her to care.

"What are you doing here?"

Adi found it tiresome to be anything other than straightforward. "I know what you're doing."

He raised both eyebrows and leaned back to appraise her, seeming to become more energized by the moment. Ironic for a dying boy. "And what's that?"

Because she was still unsure if it was only him dying, or if he was going to take the rest of Neverland down with him, she lowered her voice to a whisper while leveling him with an expressionless stare: no spark, no flare, no ignition of flames - more like ice.

"Everything you've told me has been a lie. You're going to kill Henry to save yourself - or is it the island? I'm not sure, considering I learned your entire plan from a girl that's been in a cage for as long as I've been here. And this entire time, I've believed your absurd lies. You want to know what the best part is? I know about the second option. But I can't think of a single person in existence who could ever love you, much less me."

That same air of arrogance hung around him like a thunderous storm cloud, but a sudden nervousness flickered in his eyes. "All of it? Adeline, if I wanted to use your heart, I wouldn't have trained you. Henry wouldn't be here. Emma, Hook, Regina, the Prince...none of them would have come if I had chosen you."

" _Chosen_ me?" Her voice was rising now, equal parts indignant and furious. "So you're going to use him instead - fine. But I need to know it's for the good of all of us, not only you."

It would be one thing to become - what had Wendy called it? - _immortal and all powerful_ if it meant the boys would be saved as well. It was another thing entirely when Adi learned it might be only Pan dying, not Neverland.

She had no idea what to believe anymore - not after learning Henry might die as well.

"I am dying," Pan admitted gravely, and the words felt heavy in the air above them. "But if I die, the boys, and you...all of you die with me. The shadow told me it placed the burden of their lives upon my shoulders once I decided to stay. That hourglass ticks down their time just as much as it does mine. And yours."

That meant, on some level, she and her brothers were intertwined with Pan. The thought made her feel nauseous, especially when she glanced back to the staircase from which she had come, and thought of her brothers, likely waking up confused and feeling like they'd been betrayed.

"But," he continued, "the heart will only make me immortal. The island will live..."

"...just not forever," she finished for him, attempting to ignore the sinking feeling in her stomach.

Adi chewed on her lip, mulling over a reply, but footsteps cut them off: the Dark One entered the cavernous room a moment later, treading carefully over to Adi and Pan like the ground might shatter beneath his feet.

"Adeline, could you please give us a moment?"

 _Please_. She was positive he had never said that word in his entire life - not to her, at least. It caught her off guard so much that she found herself giving him an absent nod before spinning around to hide in one of the alcoves carved naturally into the side of the giant skull.

Somewhere further back, she caught a flash of plaid. Which was good, considering she had to strain to hear from where she stood. But Henry? It was unlikely he heard any of her and Pan's conversation other than a dull murmur.

"Hello, laddie." She heard Pan say.

"Where's Henry?"

"Oh, you mean my great nephew? You still haven't told the others who I really am?" He snorted, clearly amused. "Not even your own son. Why?"

Adi's blood froze. Like snow had been dumped over her head and ice water injected into her veins. A sharp gasp escaped her lips as the truth dawned on her, the whole and unbridled truth.

Not only was Pan planning to murder a child - it was his great nephew. Rumplestiltskin's grandson. Neal's son. Which meant one terrifying truth: Pan and the Dark One were brothers.

But what happened? What occurred that left one eternally young in Neverland and the other to turn into the most powerful practitioner of dark magic in the Enchanted Forest? Did it even matter anymore?

"- stay with me," Pan was saying by the time Adi could breathe again and checked back into the conversation. "Let's start over."

"What makes you think I would ever want to be with you? That I could ever forgive you after you abandoned me? Left me brother-less, alone, struggling to keep a secret I couldn't tell anyone without them labeling me insane."

"I'm disappointed, Rumple. After all these years, I thought you'd be a little more...understanding. Considering you did the same thing to your son- you traded Baelfire for the power of a dagger. And I traded you for youth."

The more Adi saw of this family tree, the less she wanted to do with any of these people.

Now she had a pretty good idea of what had happened. The thing she didn't understand was why Pan was still trying to get Rumplestiltskin to join him. Other than their sibling bond - which seemed to be broken beyond repair at this point - there was no reason. Pan already had brothers: the Lost Boys. And the Dark One was an adult, not a child. He'd be out of place.

"- we could make the fresh start you always wanted. Together," Pan said earnestly. A little too earnestly. "Just like we planned."

"Oh, I'm gonna make a fresh start," the Dark one replied after a moment. "Just not with you."

They kept talking, but Adi couldn't bring herself to listen anymore. There were too many secrets being unearthed, and Henry was hiding somewhere in the stalagmites, and it probably wouldn't be long until Regina, Neal, and Emma broke through the barrier, and she still didn't have her magic back.

 _Get it together_ , she told herself over and over until she took a heaving sigh and, after a moment of contemplation, left her bow and quiver in the alcove before moving out from behind the rocks. The Dark One was surrounded in a haze of crimson; Pan held a strangely carved and patterned box out that seemed to be creating the mist.

"I'm sorry, Rumple. You had your chance. The choice was yours."

Then the red smoke disappeared along with the man, and Pan stood alone in the cavern, staring at the box.

"What was that?"

Pan started, as if forgetting that she had even been there, but held it up for her to see. "Pandora's Box. It traps anything inside forever unless you're able to unlock it."

"And how long were you going to hide from me that he's your brother? That you're Henry's uncle?"

"Great uncle," he corrected easily, then shook his head. "Give me a minute, and all of this will be over. You'll understand the reasons for everything I did, and why it was all necessary. I'll tell you everything you need to know, I promise. Trust me for a moment longer. We can start over once this is finished." He gave her no time to reply, instead calling over his shoulder for Henry. "It's time!"

"No," Adi hissed in reply, lowering her voice to a harsh whisper as Henry made his way over. "I'm tired of blindly trusting you. I've done it for entirely too long."

Henry emerged from behind one of the rocks further back, twisting the edge of his flannel between his fingers. "Time?"

"Time to save magic. To save Neverland. Are you ready?"

Some part of Adi wanted to intervene - the empathetic, emotional one. But the more logical side knew that without this, she would die. Her brothers. And she wasn't willing to risk that.

"What do I have to do?" Henry stood in front of Pan.

"You must give me your heart."

"You mean...I have to believe."

"No, Henry." Pan made a sound between a chuckle and a snort. "I mean, you need to _give_ me your heart."

Concern passed over Henry's face. "But what'll happen to me?"

"Well, you'll become the greatest of all heroes," he replied, like that was the best prize in the world.

"You can tell me the truth." Henry said.

 _Do you want him to?_

"I know all magic comes with a price," he continued. "Saving it must come with one, too."

Both of them could sense the boy's confidence wavering. Doubt was evident in the way he looked at the ground rather than them.

"We wouldn't lie to you, Henry," Adi interjected calmly, despising every single word. "You're right. There is a price: you have to stay here, on the island. Neverland will become your new home. I know it's a huge sacrifice, but it's worth it. I promise."

 _Who's the liar now?_

Pan shot her a grateful glance. Her intervention helped reaffirm the idea, as Neverland had become her new home in the same way they said it would become Henry's.

"Heroes have to make sacrifices all the time. My family taught me that."

Yes, they do. All the time. But not this kind. Adi couldn't move.

"If only your family could see you now. You're about to save them all." Pan smiled a little. "Are you ready?"

A weighted pause, and then, "Yes."

"Let me help you." Pan reached for Henry's wrist and waved his hand over it. The boy's hand pulsed with a sudden green energy, the same color as his magic.

Another second of hesitation. Henry stared at his hand, at Pan. And then, his eyes locking with Adi's, he shoved it into his chest and ripped his heart clean from his body. His face scrunched up with pain, and the odd sensation of reaching inside himself, but it faded when the heart surfaced with a squelch.

There was no time to inspect the heart or give it to Pan or protest or do anything, because with a poetic sense of timing, Emma and Regina and Neal burst into the room.

"Henry, wait!" Neal shouted, panicked. "Whatever they're telling you to do, don't do it."

"Dad?" Henry's jaw dropped. "You're alive?"

 _Who the hell told him his father was dead? And why was their family so freaking messed up?_ Adi was sick of asking so many questions, sick of pretending like all this was normal.

"I am, buddy. Now, I need you to listen to me. Pan is lying to you. Everything he's told you was made up to get you on his side."

"You're wrong!" Henry held up his heart, which was pulsing brighter red with every beat. "I'm going to save magic, save all of you."

"No, you're not. This was never about magic, Henry, you have to believe us. Pan's only interested in saving himself. You give him your heart, everyone will die." Regina reached out for her son, but he was too far away to touch.

Pan snorted. "Your faith in me is astounding."

"He can use Adi's heart instead. Then we can all go home."

The girl in question visibly flinched. _Way to throw me under the bus, Regina._

"We're all well aware of that, but does it look like she's jumping to volunteer? Besides, she said it herself: she doesn't love me. Using her heart won't work unless that emotion is present to fuel the bond."

As he finished speaking, every gaze turned to Adi. She shifted her weight and opened her mouth, but no words came out. The air suddenly felt denser, warmer, and her throat was extremely dry.

"She does," Emma insisted.

"No, she doesn't."

"Yes -"

Hearing them speak for her forced her to remember how much she despised all of them, how much she wanted to fight every single adult that had infiltrated her home. "I don't. And you can't make me. Henry will be the one to save magic, not me."

"He'll die!" Regina looked ready to step forward, but seemed to think better of it when she realized she was about to face two of the most powerful people on the entire island, forgetting the fact that one could no longer fight and the other was slowly dying. "Henry, you need to get away from him, now. Pan can't live without you dying - you give him your heart, it'll kill you!"

"Every hero gets tested, Henry," Pan said, moving around to face him head on and obscure the adults from view. "Adults always lie; you know that better than anyone. They're lying about this, they're lying to you."

"You don't have to do this." Neal shook his head. "Please, Henry."

"They're only saying this because they don't want you to have to stay. They're being selfish because they don't want to lose you."

Emma looked to be on the verge of tears. "You have to trust us."

Henry, strung up in the middle of the argument, stared at his heart to his family to Pan and back again. His faith was beginning to dwindle with every passing second, Adi could tell, and the visible heartbeat was growing faster and faster and faster.

Adi allowed the terror that they would lose Henry and that the entire mission would be for nothing to travel up to her voice, to make her sound like she cared about the boy. Maybe, in some twisted way, she did. "Henry, we've never been anything but honest with you. This is your choice, not theirs. Don't let them tell you what to do like they always do, like every adult does. But we're running out of time. You have to choose. Now."

"We believe in you, Henry." Neal.

"Because we love you." Emma.

"More than anything." Regina.

 _How sweet. How unfortunate._

"I love you, too," Henry said with a smile. "But I have to do this."

Despite their protests, he whispered an apology, and with one last nod from Adi although her stomach felt heavy, turned and shoved his heart into Pan's chest with all the force he could muster.

An emerald shockwave burst through the cavern, melting into the walls and undoubtedly washing over the rest of the island. There was a wild, chaotic beauty to it, and Adi would've appreciated it more had it not knocked her halfway across the room, caught between the adults and Pan and Henry.

For a moment, the timeless world seemed to freeze while Adi watched Henry's hazel eyes roll into the back of his head as he fell back on the stone with a sickening crack, head tipped to the side. There was a second in which he appeared to be poised on the edge of wakefulness, suspended in the air with arms outstretched like a marionette, but it was over once he crumpled into himself and collapsed to the floor.

Then he was still.

With his eyes closed, he looked younger than he really was. It hit her then, like she was the one who had fallen: that was all he was. A boy, a child, caught up in something much bigger than himself, something that got him killed at the expense of the lives of others.

And as Adi saw Pan grinning like the world had been handed to him - it had - she could only think that he didn't deserve it at all.

* * *

 **if you're confused at all about what the truth is about what henry's heart does for pan/neverland/the boys/adi, that's the point. you'll find out soon, pinky promise**

 **thanks so much for reading!**


	24. Until the End

**3.24 | Until the End**

"No light, no light in your bright blue eyes;  
I never knew daylight could be so violent."  
No Light, No Light - Florence + the Machine

* * *

BEFORE LIAM DIED, before she was became pirate, before Storybrooke, before Adi Morris, before the life she'd been fooled into calling her own, Fallon Jones developed a theory about death: it didn't matter.

She wasn't afraid of it, either, for one reason: death was the same as not being born. If you don't exist, it doesn't matter, because you were never there in the first place. Likewise, when you die, you're gone; it's no more to die than it is to wink out of existence.

Dying isn't really dying as it is simply ceasing to exist.

But it was Adi, not Fallon, who watched Henry fall, watched his teary eyed family rush to his motionless side, watched a victoriously smiling Peter Pan rise from the same floor Henry had collapsed upon.

And it was then that she realized. Death did matter - not to the deceased, but to the people they left behind.

Adi felt a lurch in her stomach the longer she looked at Henry's motionless - no, _dead,_ she had to remind herself - body, and even as she looked away at the moon through the skull's eye, it only grew stronger.

A searing pain began to develop along her right forearm. She didn't give herself time to care when she was distracted by both the rumble of thunder in the distance and Emma slicing Pan's shoulder with her cutlass.

Adi, startled, looked back up at the sky to search for storm clouds. For as long as she had been on Neverland, the weather had never once deviated from the same clear sky and warm temperatures.

The sky was black. Which, for a place shrouded in eternal night, wasn't strange. But the dark sky wasn't the issue - it was the lack of objects _in_ it.

The half-moon she had seen mere moments ago was fading into a dull grey alongside the constellations that tangled around it. The Big Dipper had lost its handle; the stars seemed to be flickering away right before her eyes.

There was another tug of pain.

"Adeline," she heard Pan say through the fog that was becoming her vision as the ache intensified. He grabbed her by the arm, maybe to teleport or fly away with her in tow, but then he let her go when she cried aloud in utter agony.

Aware of her incoherence, Adi let out a weak, "Huh?" and blinked a few times. Some of the blur cleared enough for her to see what everyone else did. "Oh."

What had Wendy said? _He will use the heart to absorb all the magic in Neverland. He will become immortal. All powerful_.

Oh.

 _Oh_.

Now she got it. Even in her panicky, slow brain, it clicked.

The moment Henry had shoved his heart into Pan's chest, the magic flowed from the island into him, slowly but steadily draining the force of life from Neverland to its leader.

Instead of the magic powering things like - for example - the water from Dead Man's Peak, it was instead channeled into him and only him. The heart saved him, but condemned his home.

A fair exchange: Neverland for Pan.

Before she got her memory back, Adi had dragged a dreamshade-coated arrow down her arm, allowing the poison to leak into her system and take her life in a matter of minutes. The magical waterfall at Dead Man's Peak had fixed her, but now that the magic was being pulled away...

"Oh," she repeated, eyes fixated on the black and red gash that divided her arm in two, watching as it steadily grew deeper and wider the more magic Pan stole from the supply that kept her alive. "I'm going to die."

The waterfall wasn't _healing_ \- it was a shield, a temporary bandage that hid the wound from plain sight. The water froze the cut in place, and the moment the water lost its power, the injury - and the poison - returned.

It seemed to register in Pan's mind at the exact same time as hers, and faster than she could blink, he had her by the uninjured arm, up, out the skull's eye, over the ocean, toward the heart of camp that was marked by a blazing fire trailing smoke high into the starless sky.

From up here, even though darkness was beginning to claw its way into her eyesight, Adi could see every single tree, every branch withering, curling into itself as the seconds passed until Pan was carrying her over a sea of dead, empty husks of trees.

She wasn't sure if he would be able to hear her over the rush of wind with the weakness of her voice, but she murmured, "I might be prideful, but you're the most selfish creature I've ever seen."

Pan heard - she could tell by the momentary glance down at her, the slight downturn of his mouth – but didn't answer.

When she'd died this way the first time, hadn't it been easier? Faster? She couldn't remember, but she did know she wasn't alive for this long.

Perhaps the heart stole the island's magic at a slower rate than the poison worked, letting it trickle back into her system. A painful way to go out.

Vaguely, Adi registered Pan setting her down on uneven ground. A murmur of voices followed, and then the whoosh of what she assumed was him retaking flight – or perhaps teleporting.

Felix leaned over her, taking up the whole of her narrowing line of sight. Despite being in the loop, he looked rather frazzled as he shook her by the shoulders. "What happened?" he demanded.

Letting out a halfhearted groan, she propped herself up by the elbows. Something metallic was flooding her mouth; she turned to spit the blood on the dirt beside her. "The heart saves him. Not us. It lets him take all of Neverland's magic. He becomes immortal. We die. Starting with me."

His eyes widened in realization. "And Max. And Slightly. Anyone saved by the water goes first, apparently, because both of them collapsed after that green smoke went everywhere."

 _Prince Charming (David, whatever I'm supposed to call him) too_.

"What do we do?" she asked around another mouthful of blood and saliva. "Pan didn't say anything to you before he left just now, did he?"

Felix shook his head, an unreadable expression on his face. "He looked guilty, but that was about it."

"I called him selfish," Adi said. "Look around, Felix - everything's dying because _he_ needed to live a little longer. _We_ would've been fine if he hadn't taken the heart, I'm sure."

Something in Felix's glance at her told her to watch her tone, but she refused to pay respect to the person quite literally poisoning her.

Adi was right, too. The tree houses they slept in, held together with old nails and good intentions, were shedding wood planks like the island itself supported their existences.

Some of the boys' weapons, disregarded as most of them leaned over the dying Max and Slightly in an attempt to do anything to help, had begun to fade into nothing, disappearing like the stars.

Only Felix was looking at Adi, leading her to believe the reason there hadn't been more uproar at Pan's reappearance from the boys was that they were too distracted by their dying friends - Pan's gift to them – to pay attention.

Adi, for one, didn't appreciate the thoughtful gesture.

"Wait," Adi said as something occurred to her. "Where's Wendy?"

"When we woke up, you and Pan were gone, but the pirate and the fairy were still here with her," he explained. "But when that...wave of green came through, both of them left. Wendy's still here. We put her back in her cage."

So that meant that not only were Emma, Neal, and Regina back at Skull Rock; Killian and Tink were, too. And if they had known to go, Snow White and her prince were either there or on their way.

Pan's infallible plan was falling.

"What do we do?" she repeated, trying to sit up but regretting it immediately at the wave of darkness that swept over her vision like a blackout curtain.

"You," Felix said with an authoritative tone that made her stomach drop. "Are going to stay here and try not to die while I go find Pan. I need to hear what he has to say."

"What? No! Let me come with you. I'm fine. I can help - all you're going to do is end up agreeing with whatever he has to say, and then we're right back where we started. And I'll probably be dead by the time you're finished."

Even as she protested, Adi had to suppress the urge to vomit. It probably wouldn't look good for her case of 'I'm fine' if she puked all over Felix's shoes.

"Then all I have to do is think like you. I can do that; I've spent a long time with you, and you have a...strong personality. Besides, you can't even stand."

"You'd be surprised what my high level of willpower can help me accomplish." But she knew he was right. Puffing out a sigh, she asked, "What are you even going to say to him? 'Hey, I know I've helped you this whole time, but I really need you to give Henry his heart back so we all don't die'?"

Finally, he seemed at a loss for words. "Something like that, I guess."

"You're an idiot," Adi told him.

Felix looked midway between being offended and laughing, but before he could pick one, Tootles was on his way over, calling Felix's name.

"When'd she get here?" he asked, eyeing Adi warily although it was clear she wasn't going anywhere any time soon.

"Just now," Felix answered in a clipped tone, leaving no room for discussion. "Listen, I'll be back in a little. Keep an eye on her, would you?"

Tootles agreed. Adi did not.

She shouted after Felix's retreating figure, "I do not need a babysitter!" with a surprising amount of indignation. There was no answer.

Tootles, who had decided to take a seat on the dirt opposite of where Adi had spit out her blood, frowned. Gingerly, like her skin was made of glass, he lifted her injured arm.

"I remember the day you did this." A smirk curled the edge of his mouth. "I couldn't decide if you were brave or just stupid."

"Just stupid," she decided for him, and Tootles let go of her wrist.

It had gone numb, and she could tell by the grey she was seeing that she didn't have much time left. If she remembered correctly, she'd seen black, then grey, then red, then black again when she finally died. She was trying not to think about the _dying_ part.

"You're in better shape than Slightly and Max are," Tootles said, jerking his head toward the ring of boys around the other two. "Neither of them can talk."

A dull ache settled inside of Adi. This was partially her fault, wasn't it? She could've stopped Pan, she could've done something, anything, rather than standing there like the idiot she knew she was.

"Where are theirs?"

"Max's is in his leg - real deep. Slightly's is in his stomach."

Instantly, Adi felt a tidal wave of guilt overpower the pain. Here she was, wallowing in her own misery while mere feet away two of her best friends were suffering far more than she was.

She twisted around to catch a glimpse, but too many people blocked her view. "I want to see them."

"Whoa, whoa." He pushed her back down. "You're not okay either. Just stay there."

"Shut up," she tried to snap in reply, but the words came out slurred, like Killian after he'd had a little too much to drink. Her muscles felt tense, lethargic.

Tootles jolted up, alarmed. For someone who'd hated her not too long ago, he cared more about her wellbeing than she expected him to. "Adi?"

Her reply was a low, "hmm?" as the world blurred into a monochromatic mesh of crimson, and the last thing she saw was Tootles' dark hair and tan skin melting into shadows, and then nothing, nothing, nothing.

* * *

Felix found Peter exactly where he expected: his old thinking tree.

A long time ago, back when Ace was second-in-command and Felix was still new to the island, still discovering its many secrets, he'd been exploring the jungle and came across a collection of trees, taller and thinner than the others. Some branches looked to be sparkling green, but when he had squinted and stepped forward for a better look, Peter had swooped out of nowhere and dragged him away.

Later, when Felix gained real authority, he learned how important the place was not only to Peter, but to the history of the island as a whole.

Once, he had been transfixed by the magnificence of what Peter called Pixie Hollow, but now the sight of the place made Felix's despondence grow. The trees weren't beautiful anymore; they were dropping leaves faster than he could count, shedding bark that collected in limp grey piles next to the shriveling roots.

It was a steady decay.

Felix supposed it was right to be that way: instead of his world ending in a bright flash, a burst of flames, it tortured its occupants until its last shallow breath, destroying those who had destroyed it in a poetic sense of justice.

There was neither need nor time for greetings; Felix knew Peter had heard him enter the clearing. "Did you know?"

Peter turned to face him. For a newly all-powerful immortal, he looked remarkably upset, remarkably drained of all color. Although he seemed to radiate power and energy, Felix felt his own energy dwindling when he took a moment to focus.

"No," he said, his voice quiet. "I knew the heart would make me stronger, but I didn't think it would do any of this...any of it."

"You're going to lose everything," Felix told him in a flat tone. "Me. Us. The island. All of it."

Who would Peter be if he had nothing to call himself king of? Felix wasn't sure - he hadn't known a Peter Pan who didn't reign over Neverland. He could rule the empty island, given that the whole thing didn't collapse into the sea, but it'd be different with no Lost Boys.

And with the guilt that it was Peter who had caused their deaths.

"I know. I tried to use the magic the heart gave me to fix everything, but it didn't work. So I suppose I'm not as powerful as I thought I'd be." He said it casually, as if murdering all of his friends, an eleven year old, and the girl (Felix theorized) he loved was nothing more than an item he had to check off his to-do list.

This struck a chord inside of Felix, and he spat in a voice dripping with sarcasm, "It'll be a shame to live all by yourself when this is over. A real shame." He understood now why Adi always looked like she wanted to strangle Peter. Felix was loyal to him, always, but survival overruled his desire to side with him. "You can still fix this, Peter."

"How?"

"You know how, you're just too scared to admit it."

"I -" Peter had difficulty getting the words out.

Felix found it easy. "Return the boy's heart."

Peter looked insulted that the idea had even been suggested, although both of them knew it was the easiest - and possibly only - option. "And lose everything we worked for?"

"If it means saving everyone, yes."

Part of Felix knew Peter would never in his now-immortal life give up the one thing he had used his entire time on Neverland to search for. But the other hopelessly optimistic, desperate part of him grasped for a solution where he knew there was none.

"I'm sorry, Felix." He didn't sound like it. And didn't look it either, save for the flash of distress in his eyes that lasted a full two seconds as he turned away.

Before he could stop it, Felix was blurting out exactly what he was thinking, because screw it, he was about to die, and he wasn't going out biting his tongue like the good soldier he was supposed to be. "Adi was right."

Peter didn't look at him. "About what?"

"You _are_ selfish. Even when every single thing you know is literally falling apart right in front of you, you can't do anything to go against your self-preservation." His voice rose the longer he went on - which must've surprised Peter, because he rarely spoke in anything above a monotone. "Max is dying. Slightly. Adi. You think you just killed some insignificant child, but it's bigger than that, Peter."

When Peter finally spun on his heel to face Felix again, he looked genuinely terrified. "I can't grow up. Felix, don't you get it? That's all I've ever wanted: to stop growing up."

"What's the point of being young forever if you killed so many to achieve it?"

Peter frowned. "It doesn't matter."

Felix shook his head. "What would you do without any of us here with you?" He didn't wait for a reply, because he had a sinking feeling he knew what it'd be, and refused to hear it aloud. "Peter, I want to be young too, but this isn't the right way."

"Since when do you care about what the _right way_ is? You've been on my side this entire time, Felix, so why now are you turning against me?"

 _Once I realized I was going to die._

"I'm still on your side. But I understand the repercussions. I'm willing to search for a better way."

Peter considered this for a moment. "If I remove the heart, I'm not sure how much longer I have."

"If you save everyone, maybe they'd be willing to help you," Felix countered. "It's your call."

That was the last card Felix had left to play – _you're the leader, not me; you make the decisions._

He glanced up at the decaying branches, the dull and empty sky, seeming to come to a consensus with himself. "Let's go, then."

There was an underlying threat, impossible for Felix to miss: _if this fails, it's on you._

 _If this fails,_ Felix thought, _I'm dead anyway._

"Don't you know?" he replied with a hint of a grin despite the dread building up inside. "Peter Pan never fails."

The ghost of a smile appeared on Peter, but he fought it away as he reached over to a red box perched safely atop a rock that Felix hadn't noticed until now. It was small enough to fit in his hand, maroon and layered with strange, ancient designs: a mixture of Greek letters and Egyptian hieroglyphs. Peter held it so tightly his knuckles went white.

"What's that?" Felix asked, albeit nervously. The longer he studied the thing, the stronger the bad feeling he had about it built.

"Don't worry, Felix. We have other things to worry about now, remember?"

 _Right. Because you_ always _have to come first._

Peter took Felix by the arm with his free hand, and the two disappeared together, away from the crumbling majesty of Pixie Hollow while the island shattered around them.

* * *

Adi decided she wasn't a big fan of dying.

It was her second time shaking hands with death, but that didn't exactly help. This was different than before. Then, she hadn't been gone long enough to see anything - at least, not like she was now.

Then, Pan and Felix had saved her (thinking about that tasted like vinegar) before she'd been fully encompassed by the poison. Now, however, there was no magical cure.

You know that saying about your life flashing before your eyes? It's true. Not exactly flashing, but more like a slow recap while you struggle through your last moments. Adi figured she was still alive, still barely breathing, inches away from the barrier that sliced life and death in two.

First, she was toddler-age Fallon with her big brothers in the room they all shared together, staring out the window at the stars above while the other two snored loudly. Then she was five, aboard a violently swaying ship, awake with Killian listening to the crackle of thunder as a storm rocked back and forth.

Nine years old in a life of servitude.

Eleven years old, discovering her magic when she accidentally set fire to the only blanket she had in the middle of the night, then stomping it out in a panicked frenzy, then vowing never to speak to anyone about it as she did her best to hide the charred thing.

Fourteen, boarding the ship Killian and Liam joined the Navy on, agreeing to keep her head down and clean up after the disgusting crew of men on board, agreeing not to start fights with any of the ones who treated her like scum.

Fifteen, fed up with everything but dressed in beautiful new clothes next to her Captain and Lieutenant brothers aboard the _Jewel of the Realm,_ Liam's most prized possession. The sun warmed her cheeks, but her jaw was locked tight.

Sixteen, fighting with Liam, Liam dying, hunting Snow White, imprisonment. Sixteen for who knows how long in high school with two reluctant friends who didn't really give a damn about her, who probably didn't even notice when she disappeared.

Sixteen until seventeen, where she came to Neverland and began a whole string of seventeens alongside Peter Pan and her new friends, Felix and Slightly and Ace and Max and Tootles and Devon, the last two only sometimes. She watched herself as Adi, not Fallon, re-learn how to fight and how to use a sword, how to shoot a bow and fight with two knives, how to lead and how to be strong, how to know when to quit and know when to not, how to be daring and how to be brave.

She watched the island become her home, watched her leave it all behind only to reclaim it and become someone else but someone really quite the same with just a bit more strength than she did before.

But, as all things do, the strength disappeared, and the string of seventeens ended, slowly burning away.

Instead of an explosion, there were only the fading embers left at the end of the fire, going out quietly and as softly as only flames can flicker out.

There was no more life left to see, and so Adi was left in the dark, very empty and very alone.


	25. No Way Out

3.25 | No Way Out

"I know the fight is on the way  
and the sides have been chosen."  
Keep Your Eyes Open - NeedToBreathe

* * *

ADI FELT IT was appropriate to call herself an expert in death.

She had watched someone she loved die. She had killed many others. She had died - twice.

Alone in the darkness, she considered this, wondering how it was that she still had the ability to think anything at all. Something pulsed inside of her, but she knew it was impossible that she still had a heartbeat after all that time with poison lacerating her veins.

There weren't many stories about the afterlife that Adi knew of or even believed in, and she wasn't keen on finding out firsthand if she could help it.

Then the darkness began to fade into light. Her vision brightened until it hurt to keep her eyes open and she squeezed them shut, feeling the impossible pulse thrum in her fingertips.

The hazy outlines of some world returned, a dark sky blocked out by leafy branches, and for a moment Adi thought she was in some strange sort of afterlife that looked quite a bit like Neverland - that is, until Tootles' face came into focus above her, blotting out the foliage.

She blinked.

Adi supposed she could be named master of resurrections, too.

"She's awake," Tootles said over his shoulder to someone Adi couldn't see.

Jarred, she tried to ask, "What?" but it came out as a warbled choking noise instead. Then she turned to retch a mixture of blood and what she assumed was dreamshade next to the blood already staining the dirt.

He stared at her with mild disgust. "Did Slightly throw up too?" he asked over his shoulder again.

"Yeah," Ace called back with unmasked revulsion.

Adi sat up, which was considerably easier when there was no poison in her body. She ran a hand through her hair, and it came back covered in a fine layer of dust. Her mouth tasted like chalk. "What the hell is going on?"

"You passed out a little after Felix left. Still breathing, but not a lot. We all thought the three of you were...gone. Then something weird happened."

Though Tootles didn't elaborate, Adi could take a pretty good guess as to what that _something weird_ was. The foliage around them had been restored to full life, had sprouted new leaves and grown new bark. The air smelled fresh, of pollen and spring.

"Oh," she said, which seemed to be a common reaction for the day. Then she blinked when it hit her: the returning life on the island meant one thing had happened. Part of her felt grateful, the other confused and panicked. "I gotta go."

Tootles jerked back from her, looking stunned. "Go where?"

"Can't tell you - you might follow me."

"What? Adi, you just came back from the dead. There's no way I'm letting you -"

"Letting me?" she interrupted with a snort as she rose, using his shoulder for balance. "Good one."

"Hey!" he replied indignantly, watching with a curious eye while she picked up her bow and quiver, both of which had been discarded a few feet away. "C'mon, do you ever _stop_?"

Adi made a noise with her mouth that sounded like _pfft_ and said, "I'll stop when I'm dead."

"Yeah, well, mission accomplished!"

"I wasn't kidding – I have to go _right_ now. Sorry, Tootles." She shrugged, gave him a quick wave, and vanished despite his sputtered, shocked sounds of protest.

Adi had a pretty good idea where she'd find Henry's family, and in turn, Pan and Felix. And due to her now rapidly beating heart, she could take a well educated guess as to what all of them were doing in Skull Rock together.

* * *

As Henry's heart returned to its rightful owner, Peter had to summon all of the remaining willpower in his (yet again) fading body to keep himself from collapsing on the floor of Skull Rock. Somewhere through the energy that deflated inside him like a balloon, he felt Felix catch him by the shoulder and force him to remain upright.

"I'm _fine_ ," Peter hissed. His eyes were glued to the family gathered around Henry, and found himself wondering if any of his Lost Ones would stand over him like that if he died - or came back to life. He would probably be finding out soon.

Felix arched an eyebrow but didn't press it, instead following Peter's eyes over to Henry and his family. "What next?"

"You were the one who convinced me to come here. You tell me."

Watching the boy made him acutely aware of just how little time he had left to drag himself out of the pit he'd thrown himself into the moment he returned the heart.

The good news: the air grew clearer, the stars returned. Giving the heart back to the Truest Believer did indeed revive the island - unfortunately, that left Peter in desperate need of another way.

There was, of course, _the_ other way, but he had a feeling the person in question wouldn't exactly be jumping to his aid if he asked for her help.

Somewhere off to his right, Henry was standing, and the adults - all seven of them - seemed to have reached some kind of decision. Peter found himself wishing Adeline were there, but only so she could use her magic to help protect him from whatever horrible things they were about to do to him for trying to kill the boy.

"Please," Regina scoffed, raising her voice amid the whispers they had taken to conversing in. "He can't hurt us. Look at him." She jerked a hand in Peter's direction.

He was too shocked, too weak to be offended.

"Don't underestimate us," Felix warned her, but Regina merely rolled her eyes.

"We just got Henry back," Emma replied as she stepped forward with a hand twitching toward the cutlass over her shoulder. "Don't underestimate _us_. We're leaving, with or without your help."

Peter managed a smirk. "The threat still stands: no one leaves this island without my permission. You can't leave unless I let you."

"Well, mate, that's all well and good, but I'm afraid it doesn't look like you'll be lasting through the hour. And I suppose once you're dead, there's nothing keeping us here." Killian shrugged with a falsely apologetic smile and a touch too much of arrogance.

"There is something," Peter said easily, tightening his grip around Pandora's Box in his pocket and wondering if any of them had noticed it. "You just haven't figured it out yet."

A beat of silence passed through the room. Peter stood his ground although it felt as if his body was grinding to a slow halt; sweat was beading on his forehead for a reason he couldn't place.

"Wait," Neal opened his mouth like he was struggling to place his confusion into words. "Where is -"

A rustle of something that sounded like wind cut him off. Another bout of surprised silence fell over them, as they turned to see Adeline there, blinking and stumbling over her own feet.

"Adi?" she asked, pushing her short hair from her eyes. "Right here, and very confused."

Neal stared. "That wasn't what I was going to say."

Felix blinked at her in astonishment. "You aren't dead."

"Sorry to disappoint," she snapped. Then she pointed to Peter and raised her eyebrows. "He's about to be, though. So what now?"

"'What now' is you let us leave before this whole place falls apart," Emma chimed in, revolving her body so that she stood protectively in front of Henry, like she was afraid one of the three was going to steal him from her. "Henry did what you wanted. Now let us go."

"I suppose if I'm to die, then you'll never be able to go home," Peter said.

He wasn't entirely sure that was how it worked, or if he even had the power to decide that, but he was hoping the adults were too desperate to question it. They would do anything to get back to the Land Without Magic, and once their ticket back to their world expired, they were out of luck.

At least, that's what Peter was hoping they would believe. He, too, was beginning to grasp at straws – a sentence he'd never once imagined thinking.

Regina narrowed her eyes. "How do we know you're telling the truth?"

Peter shrugged with a mocking innocence only he could pull off. "I suppose you'll have to take the chance while you still have it."

"You _suppose_?" the queen repeated through clenched teeth, taking a threatening step toward Peter. Almost immediately, Felix and Adeline stepped in front of him.

"You'll have to trust us," Adeline said with a pointed glare. "As difficult as it might be."

"Suppose we trust you. Then what? Who's to say you don't just up and kill us the second you've decided you don't need our help anymore?" Killian bit out with arched eyebrows.

She leveled her brother with an even stare. "You of all people should know I'm a woman of my word."

In the awkward lapse that followed, Neal seemed about to burst with the question he never got out earlier. "Where is my father?"

Snow White nodded like she'd been thinking the same thing. Peter noticed a bottle of water on a cord at her waist that hadn't been there before. "We can't leave without him."

That much was obvious to Peter, but the urgency with which she said it put him off. He didn't think old Rumple was that important to them.

Adeline, too, apparently. "Why not?"

Pallid and looking hesitant to answer, Prince Charming replied. It dawned on Peter than he had just returned from an almost-death as well, but he looked worse for the wear than Adeline.

"He can find a way to permanently heal me," he said with a vague motion toward his midsection.

"Can he?" Adeline asked, unimpressed. "If you're willing to take that chance, good luck. I wouldn't trust that guy to tie my shoes, much less save my life."

"I don't have a choice."

"That's true." She shrugged. "How about this – you help us, and we give you the Dark One _and_ a way off the island."

Charming considered this. "No more tricks?"

"No more tricks," Adeline promised. "Like I said, I'm a woman of my word."

"It's true," Tinkerbell interjected with what looked to be grudging agreement. "I believe Adi. It's Pan I'm not quite so sure about."

Looking surprised the fairy had even spoken her name, Adeline quickly masked her expression and tilted her head to glance at Peter. "He isn't lying." She paused to give him a calculating stare. "Right?"

Peter returned the look, though he was nervously fingering Pandora's Box in his pocket, out of fear or anxiety he wasn't sure. "Right."

"I believe them."

The voice was small, out of sight - Peter had forgotten the very person they were all gathered for. Henry peered up at his family, and then at the three others across the room from him. Beside the adults, he looked smaller than his age.

"Henry, they tried to kill you!" Emma replied in an angry half-whisper. "How could you even begin to believe them?"

"Pan is the one who tried to kill me. Everyone else...they helped him out of loyalty, not because they wanted to kill me. Not all of them are bad people."

"Do you even hear yourself right now?" Regina asked in disbelief. "These are the people who took you from us, who tricked you into becoming friends with them, who tried to murder you."

"Yeah, Mom, I do. Isn't that what being a hero is? Helping others even when they do bad things?"

The queen fell silent. An uncomfortable ripple of quiet fell through Skull Rock as the rest of Henry's family measured his words.

"Fine," Emma said without bothering to convene with the others. Her teeth were gritted. "But if you try to weasel your way out of this, I will personally dismantle this entire island by myself."

"Sounds fair." Felix chuckled as he said it, probably because he knew as well as Peter did that the island would dismantle itself soon enough.

"I have an idea." Adeline, who had been twisting at the sleeve of her shirt, looked up at the adults without making eye contact with any of them. "It's kind of crazy."

"All of your ideas are crazy," Felix said flatly.

"Good point." She shrugged and turned back to Peter. "Remember the Neverland Shade? That really powerful shadow that visited us the time you tried to get me to stop the sand in the hourglass? The one that ruled the island before you? That probably still does?"

" _I_ rule the island," Peter reminded her indignantly.

She raised a daring eyebrow. "How 'bout we let the Shade be the judge of that?"

He returned the gesture. "And how are you planning on getting it to come here?"

Adeline's confidence seemed to waver. "Uh..." Then her eyes flickered over to the hourglass in the corner, the same one whose magic she'd attempted to stop once in her life already. "Like this."

From the startling spark in her eyes, Peter could tell whatever plan she was formulating in that devious head of hers was going to be a dangerous one. He watched in equal confusion and horror as she marched up to the hourglass and leaned so close to it that her breath fogged the glass.

Perhaps, had he been back at full strength, had he been in control of the entire situation, he might have appeared in front of her and blocked her path to the hourglass. He would've stopped whatever it was she was thinking about doing.

But Peter was not at full strength. It felt like his mind was lagging five seconds behind real time, and the lapse between what he saw and what he thought was long enough to be disastrous.

And when Adeline pressed a hand to the hourglass, her blue eyes fixated on the sand as it trickled lower and lower, her mouth twisted into a frown while her nails drummed against the surface of the glass, there was a pause that took an eternity to pass, and even in all that time Peter didn't think to open his mouth before the entire thing shattered around her.

* * *

Adi didn't have a clue what she was doing.

To be fair, that wasn't an irregular occurrence, but even she was surprised when the glass started to rain down, showering her and those in the nearest vicinity with surprisingly sharp, golden hail.

Letting out a yelp of surprise, she revolved on the spot to cover her head with her arms and dug her teeth into her lip to keep from yelling aloud when a few shards of glass sliced into her skin. Blood beaded up along her arms, but by the time she stood, the pain was pushed to the back of her mind.

Partly because she'd literally just _died_ and nothing could compare to that, and partly because it was now Pan's turn to cause her heart to nearly stop.

He swayed on the spot, looking dangerously unsteady and unnaturally white. But he didn't fall. Although his eyes rolled into his head for a moment, he gritted his teeth and forced himself to remain upright.

Regina looked personally offended that he wasn't dead yet. "How come everyone else has to die, and even when his source of life is taken away, he's _still alive_?"

Emma muttered an agreement with a roll of her eyes. "At least while he's here we can get the answers we've been looking for."

"Answers?" Adi asked from where she stood alone on the hourglass platform beside a sad pile of sand and broken glass. Answers were exactly what she'd been searching for her entire life - especially as of lately. "To what questions?"

"First of all, where my father is," Neal said again. He was looking at Adi like she should know, but upon seeing the (false) confusion in her expression instead turned his gaze to Pan.

For someone known for his cunning cleverness, Pan made the remarkably stupid decision to reach for his left pocket, from which Adi caught a glimpse of something deep red. If that was what she thought it was, they were going to have more problems than she could keep track of.

Pan's voice was quiet yet strong, not shaky like she expected it to be. "I've already told you – you'll know when I need you to know."

"Are you threatening me?" Neal let out a bark of laughter. "Pan, you're in no position to be making propositions - threats _or_ bargains."

"Maybe not," he replied with a wicked smirk. "But I have your father exactly where I need him to be."

"Don't assume that you're the ones in power here," she said ardently. "The three of us are in charge even when everything falls apart. Neverland is still _our_ home - we get to call the shots."

Emma looked to be on the verge of forming a fervent reply, but stopped abruptly as a loud roar ripped through the cavern, shredding the air like a knife.

Unlike last time, the Neverland Shade, the island's protector and true ruler made a grand entrance rather than slipping quietly into the room like the last time she had encountered it.

Then a voice that sounded like a thousand at once and dropped five octaves rang out, jolting chills down Adi's spoke. "Do not make false claims, Adeline Morris," it said. "Do not pretend that you do not know how Neverland is ruled."

Of course she knew how it was ruled. But that didn't mean Pan had no power.

Fighting the urge to shudder from the edge to its tone, she chanced a glance up to see it hovering in the empty expanse of one of the skull's eyes, nearly invisible against the night. "And so why do you think I called you?"

It moved closer. Henry's family, although seeming to be in shock at the fact that a shadow could speak, took a few steps back as a collective unit. Beside her, Felix tensed.

"I believe you're seizing the opportunity to take leadership of Neverland in the wake of Peter Pan's death."

Pan snorted but - amazingly - remained silent. Perhaps if he had been his normal self, he would've said something about how there was no way a _girl_ could rule his island.

Adi was momentarily glad he wasn't his normal self.

"I thought you'd been watching us?" She arched an eyebrow. "Because you should know better."

"I saw the desire for power in you years ago, Adeline Morris. I doubt even someone like Peter Pan could quell that fire."

Unnerved by the continued use of her full name, she stared at it with a clenched jaw. "He couldn't. Your point?"

"I stopped watching."

"You should've paid attention," she replied with a wry smile. "I might be selfish, but maybe not as much as you may believe. I'm here to save my friends - not Pan."

The shadow was silent at that, and Neal took the chance to speak with it. "Will you help us?" he asked, calm despite the intense golden glare the Shade fixed him with. "We need to get off the island."

"I'm aware," it replied coolly. "But at the moment, although it pains me, I owe my assistance to these three. If the island dies, I die, and I have no intention of doing so."

"Really?" Adi deadpanned as more of a statement than a question. "You hate Pan. I'm assuming you hate Felix and me by association. Why do you _owe us_ your help?"

"Because, Adeline Morris, you said your intentions are to help your brothers - the true owners of Neverland."

Pan sneered. "And what would that make me?"

If the Shade could form discernible expressions, Adi figured it'd give him an unimpressed look. "An intruder who took more power than he should have."

Felix's hand tightened around his club, like he was planning on baseball batting the shadow into next Tuesday, but Adi shot him a warning glance and a single shake of her head. If he did that, they wouldn't live to see next Tuesday.

Despite Pan's impertinence, she could sense they were making progress. Violence - especially considering the fact that his club would pass right through the shadow's ghostly form anyway - wouldn't work in their favor this time around.

"If he's an unwelcome intruder," Killian cut in with narrowed eyes. "Why haven't you gotten rid of him earlier?"

The Shade paused. "In being the first to treat Neverland as a home, a place to be conquered and ruled over rather than a sanctuary for visitors in dreams, Peter Pan ripped the island from the Dream Realm, and in doing so, tied himself to its life force."

Henry, who had been quiet up until now, tilted his head to the side. "There's a Dream Realm?"

"Yes; one that used to be home to Neverland, along with many other frequent destinations of dreams - particularly children's - but that was ruined the moment he arrived."

"So," Adi said hesitantly, wondering if she was thinking the same thing as everyone else. "What realm are we in now?"

"Neverland's," the shadow answered simply.

"How is that possible?" Regina demanded. "Realms don't just pop up out of nowhere."

"Magic can make almost anything possible," Snow reminded her quietly.

Adi blinked - she'd almost forgotten she and David were there. Tink, too, but she was hanging back at the edge of the group, silent and watching the conversations with constantly shifting eyes, like she wanted to listen but understood that it wasn't her fight to lead.

The Shade continued, undeterred. "Neverland forced its way into a realm of its own, and that was the act that ultimately doomed it."

"You're saying..." Felix was a lot paler than his usual self. "There's no way out?"

"You've put up a valiant fight, but truly, you have been doomed from the start."

"Hold on!" Adi demanded as she remembered something. "Time out. I thought only Pan was dying. Now you're telling me we are, too? You are? Can shadows even die?"

"We can fade." Sounding like it had expected that, the shadow nodded. "In the slow end of the island, Pan is the first of many to fall. His death doesn't _instigate_ Neverland's demise, it simply foreshadows it."

"Pan is the warning sign," she clarified, her throat constricting. Then she turned to him, hoping he noticed the unintentional sparks flickering along her clenched fists. "Did you know? Is this another secret you kept from me this whole time?"

"No," he whispered, and if she didn't know better, she'd think he sounded apologetic.

Felix had the same blank expression as she had on, but his eyes were molten with betrayal, fear, anger, desperation. Adi understood.

As if sensing this, the Shade said to the two of them in what she considered a mildly sympathetic tone, "Places in illegitimate realms with stolen magic were never meant to last."

That didn't make her feel any better - in only brought back the _doomed from the beginning_ issue.

A silence fell over them, one that even the adults didn't take advantage of. Adi remembered all the lies she had been told, the ones she'd believed and the ones she'd refused; she remembered everything she had been guided and forced through, all the things that made her into _her._ And she remembered her brothers, back at camp, mourning over what might become of her and Felix and Pan, terrified and disoriented.

She opened her eyes, blew out a breath through clenched teeth, and steeled herself. "Okay," she said, her voice tight. "How do we fix this?"

Pan burst out in laughter. For someone so hell-bent on saving himself, he was finding her determination remarkably funny. Perhaps the slow creep of death into his soul was making him delirious.

Rolling her eyes, she turned to him, a little satisfied to see he was pale and shaking. "What?"

"You heard the shadow. There isn't a way around this."

"I thought you would do anything to stay alive?"

"There's nothing left for me to do."

"No," Adi spat, shaking her head. "I will not accept that. I'm not going down without a fight." Then she spun around to look at the Shade once more and asked again, with more force, "How do we fix this?"

It hesitated. When it spoke, it sounded disjointed, as if each voice in the millions it sounded like it had decided to use a different pitch. "Are you sure you want to know, Adeline Morris?"

She grit her teeth and tensed. "I wouldn't have asked if I didn't want an answer."

Was it worried she wouldn't be able to handle it? Did it think that if it told her there was no answer, no way out, that she would simply lose it? What terrible - or perhaps impossible - thing would be able to save them?

"Neverland is decaying because it is in an invalid realm of its own. But if it were to be in a different realm, it may have the capacity to live on despite being forced from its original home."

Felix had swung his club off of his shoulder and was now leaning on it like an old man a cane. "So you're saying...we _move_ Neverland?"

"Essentially, yes."

The adults, who had decided against speaking for the past few minutes, suddenly seemed unable to keep a cap on their words any longer.

Regina chuckled. Henry looked confused, like he was attempting to solve a math question in his head without a calculator. Killian had on his usual mask of indifference.

Emma, lip drawn between her teeth, said, "That's impossible. Now that we've established that, will you help us find a way home?"

"I cannot," it told her tonelessly. "There simply isn't enough magic left in this realm to do so. My sincerest apologies."

The Shade cast one last look around the room as if attempting to seal everything in its memory, met Pan's eyes for one uneasy moment, and then floated away from the ground in a motion so fast Adi nearly missed it.

"Wait," Adi called after it. "You didn't answer all of my questions!"

It paused in its movement, glancing back down to her. Up there, it looked a million times more intimidating. "What else is there to ask?"

Knowing she was fighting for nothing, giving her best efforts in vain, she held her head high and stared it right in the face. "What happens if we find a way to bring Neverland somewhere else? Does the island live? Or die? Do we live? Do we die?"

"If you manage it," it replied, "all current inhabitants survive, but the magic that keeps all on the island young forever will fade. You will age."

"And Pan?" she continued, taking a step forward. "What happens to him?"

"He will live," - the words sounded bitter - "given that you find somewhere to go in a timely manner. He and Neverland are bound after what he did. Save the island, he lives. But once he is gone, he cannot come back in the same way that you did."

Again feeling privileged that she was allowed to escape from death's clutches for the second time, Adi nodded and pressed her lips together into a thin line. "Thank you."

The Shade turned once more and began to rise back toward the night, but moments before it disappeared into the dark -

"Wait," she said again, softer, almost like she didn't want it to hear her. It did. Then she gestured to Henry and his family. "What about them?"

Its voice hung heavier in the air now. "I cannot help you anymore."

Then the Shade was gone. Its eleven intruders were left among the shattered remains of the hourglass, shrouded in the eternal night and the wretched promise of their oncoming demise.


	26. Born to Die

**3.26 | Born to Die**

"This is what it's like when we collide;  
this is how you bring me back to life."  
Bring Me Back To Life - Ht Bristol

* * *

THERE WAS A moment of stunned stillness in which no one seemed to be able to articulate words. They seemed to realize that in the wake of the Shade's exit, the decision of what to do next was left in their unsteady hands.

Adi wished she had cherished the quiet a little more, because it only took a few seconds for everyone to spit out the words that had been bubbling up inside like boiling water while they attempted to collect themselves.

Henry's family, contrary to their agreement to make a shaky alliance with Adi, Pan, and Felix, immediately formed a circle that excluded the three Neverland dwellers to discuss their options.

Upon the fast realization that they weren't going to be any help, Adi spun on her heel to face the two boys. "So how are we going to do this?"

Despite the spirit he seemed to be losing, Pan summoned enough energy to give her the most withering look she'd ever seen. "Do you mean to ask how we're going to _move the island_?"

Adi didn't have the patience for his negativity. "Don't talk to me like I'm a child, Pan, because you and I both know the shadow wouldn't have said anything about it if it was impossible. Right?"

Felix frowned. "It's possible that it lied to give us false hope. It hates Peter. Why should it help him?"

"Because it's not just helping Pan," Adi pointed out. "It's helping everyone else, too. Alongside itself. Before it left, it said, 'I can't help you anymore.' _Anymore._ That means it helped before. I'm gonna assume it means it helped when it told us that shifting realms would stop the island from dying."

"I'm not willing to risk my life on your assumptions," Pan said coldly.

Fixing him with a cool stare, she said evenly, "Then you're dead anyway."

There was a moment in which they exchanged glares, emerald clashing against sapphire, and they both narrowed their eyes, daring the other to give up. Pan had a ring of red tinging the white of his eye crimson, like he'd spent the past hour rubbing his fingers against his cornea.

"Suppose I agreed to hear you out," he said after a moment, not looking away from her. "What then? What suggestion do you have to _move_ an _island_?"

That was the thing: Adi had no suggestion. She had no idea, no inklings, no convoluted plan to get them out of the waist-deep mess that was about to close over their heads and suffocate them.

But even with the world about to cave in on them without sign of an exit route, she refused to give up until someone stole the air from her lungs, and even then she would wrap her flame-filled hands around the neck of whoever dared to kill her and squeeze the life out of them in turn.

"You have no idea," Felix said, deadpan, more as a statement than a question. When Adi's eyes set on the wooden club he always had swung over his shoulder, she got the sudden fear that he might hit her upside the head with it and, under the impression that she was in love with Pan, steal her heart for their leader.

Mentally shaking her head, Adi scolded herself. Felix was her best friend. There was no way he would do that, and besides - he of all people should understand her disinterest in the love she was supposed to have for Pan.

"Nope," she answered after a single beat, chewing on the inside of her cheek. "But I intend to think of something."

So she thought.

First option: Pan's shadow. It could carry two or three people away from Neverland and to safety, be it in the form of the Land Without Magic or the Enchanted Forest or some other realm she'd never even heard of. But - no. What of the people attached to the island permanently; namely her? Slightly? Max?

Not wanting to be spoken to like a child again, Adi kept this idea to herself, and, hoping the second was better than the first, began to spawn her next thoughts aloud.

"We could leave with Henry and his family on Hook's ship. Take water with us for whoever needs to be kept alive, and then we could go from there." And upon seeing the looks on their faces, shrugged. "It's better than nothing - which is what I'm seeing from both of you."

"I don't think it'd work like that," Felix replied with what she thought was a placating tone so she didn't explode. "Neverland might just collapse behind us, and the water would lose its magical properties - it'd be useless. Besides, I think Peter would die anyway. The problem is with the island, so leaving it would...probably be a bad idea."

Adi sighed and bit her lip, letting her eyes flutter shut to mask her frustration. "I miss when the only person I cared about was myself. It was a lot easier than this heroic save-everyone stuff."

But she didn't really mean it.

Felix snorted. "And I thought we were becoming good friends."

She faked a nonchalant shrug. "Eh."

Pan looked between them. "Now is _not_ the time."

"Yes, sir," Adi said with a roll of her eyes. "Anyway, I'm going to go talk to them. Remind them of the deal we made."

Without waiting for a reply, she moved quietly over to where Henry's family was, and edged herself in the gap between Emma and Regina. They stopped talking immediately and all turned to stare at her like she was insane.

"Hey," she said casually. "I'm here to let you know that, yes, we can hear you blatantly discussing your plans to get off the island and stealing back the Dark One so he can lead you to safety, but I assure you that when Pan dies, the location of Rumplestiltskin dies with him." The lie rolled easily off her tongue. "Remember our agreement?"

"Yeah." Emma side-eyed her with a suspicious gaze. "We remember."

"Excellent," Adi replied. "Because it just occurred to me that once Pan dies, we have no idea how much more time we'll have before the island goes as well. And all of you are subject to the laws of the land, so I guess if it's gone then so is everyone on it."

"Even if we aren't really inhabitants of Neverland?" Snow asked.

"You're here, so you're fair game."

Charming, who had gained more color in his cheeks than the last time Adi had seen him, pulled his wife closer to him. "And Rumplestiltskin?"

"As soon as we're out of imminent danger, you'll get him back. But for the moment, I'd prefer not to have yet another insufferable adult with an annoying god-complex messing everything up."

"Even if he has an idea of how to save your island?" Regina questioned as she flicked some of her dark hair from her face. "The Dark One's specialties are deals and loopholes."

" _Especially_ if he has an idea of how to save our island," Adi said, shaking her head in distaste. "I would never leave the fate of my friends and my home in his hands, even if your lives are staked on their survival as well. His self-preservation is stronger than his loyalties."

Killian surveyed her with a calculating look, his blue eyes glimmering with humorless mirth. "You'd know a lot about self-preservation, wouldn't you?"

"I would," she responded in a clipped tone. "So, you'll stick with our agreement? Help in exchange for a way home and your Rumplestiltskin?"

"We already agreed," Regina pointed out, impatient. "I'd just like to know why you think we can help if the three of you geniuses can't think of something yourselves."

Adi ignored the jab about her intelligence, because she figured none of the adults had come up with anything either, and it was Regina's way of asserting her dominance. Even in a place like this, she still found ways to make herself queen.

Felix and Pan came to stand on either side of Adi, who had backed up enough in her space between Emma and Regina to allow them room.

"Between a thief, a prince, a pirate, the son of the Dark One, the Savior, a queen, the Truest Believer, a fairy, the King of Neverland, and a couple of Lost Ones, I'm sure we can find something," Felix said with a sly smile. "And if we can't, I have to say this will be the strangest mass death I've ever heard of."

* * *

It turned out that the thief, the prince, the pirate, the son of the Dark One, the Savior, the queen, the Truest Believer, the fairy, the King of Neverland, and the Lost Ones were terrible at working together even in life or death circumstances.

Adi wasn't sure why she had expected any different. She and the two people she had spent about five years with couldn't even agree - why would she think that she could get along with two insufferably in love people, the brother she had learned to hate, and the queen that ruined her life?

For a moment, she turned away from the group. Behind her, Felix quietly said her name through everyone else's words, but she didn't answer. A headache was beginning to pulse in her temples.

With her back to the others, Adi could almost pretend like they weren't even there, that she was just having a terrible dream and that she would wake up any minute and join her brothers in whatever game they decided to play that morning. Maybe she really had died, and this was hell.

Through the skull's eye that the Shade had entered and departed from, Adi could see the clusters of stars she had thrown into the sky, mirroring the ones she remembered from Storybrooke. They were disjointed, cut off in the small window she had to see outside, but she could make out a couple she recognized: Orion and Gemini, right next to each other.

Right as she placed their names, something odd happened, quite like the flashbacks she used to fall into prior to regaining her memories from when her name was Fallon. A crystal clear picture flashed before Adi's eyes.

 _Midnight, her birthday. An open expanse of sky ahead, a mess of clouds behind that began to drop snow the longer she stayed there. Storybrooke's dock, deserted except for her at the very end, quiet and small as she flipped through the book of star charts she'd had for as long as she could remember. Something was wrong. Something was out of place. And then she found the coin, did those strange movements that felt robotic and controlled by some unseen being. When she woke, she was in Neverland._

Adi's eyes widened for a fraction of a second, her lips parting as she unconsciously stepped further away from the others. There, in the empty stretch of darkness between Gemini's twin stars, was her answer.

"I know what to do," she whispered with a surprising calmness despite her heart suddenly going a mile a minute. When no one heard her, she raised her voice and repeated herself.

"You mean you _think_ you know what to do?" Regina asked, hands on her hips. "I'm not trying anything unless you're positive it'll work. I'm not putting my son in any more danger."

"He's already in danger along with you and everyone else," Adi snapped. "So any suggestion is better than the useless arguing we've been doing."

Regina looked ready to fire back something laden with equal exasperation, but Felix stopped her by putting his hand up. Miffed, the queen shut her mouth.

"We're don't have time for this. If she has an idea, let's hear her out."

"Thank you," she told him. "Pan and Felix already know this, but I'll have to summarize for the rest of you: I came to Neverland because when I was in Storybrooke, I found some kind of magical coin that transported me where I wanted to go. I guess I subconsciously picked here."

Before she could explain further, Emma's eyes lit up. "You think you can find a way to get it to take us away from here."

"Not _us,_ per se, but - you're going to think I'm crazy - the whole of Neverland. Pan said that before he gained all the power he has now, he used it to travel between realms. That means it isn't just a one-time-use thing, like magic beans. Who knows how much magic it has."

Pan eyed her reproachfully. "It's always been used for one person. Once it was used by two, and that didn't end well. Who knows what it'd do to a whole mass of rock _and_ people."

"What, you think it's cursed?" She fixed him with a hard stare. "Do you know the extent of its power, Pan? When was the last time you even used it?"

"I put it away when I took it from you. I haven't used it since," he admitted. "But that still doesn't mean it'll do what you want it to."

"What I _need_ it to," Adi corrected. "Where is it? Even if I find it, bring it back, and it doesn't work, at least we know we tried instead of standing around and arguing while everything falls down around us."

"Let me go get it." But when Pan made to disappear on the spot, his skills of magical teleportation failed him. Frowning, he looked at his hands as if they were what had caused the issue.

"Well, look at this," Killian taunted with a mocking smile. "Someone's clipped his wings."

Adi rolled her eyes for what felt like the hundredth time that day. "Pan, just tell me where to go."

"It's back in my cabin, but it won't be easy to access. You need a key." He paused, like he was reluctant to either tell her or to face her reaction. "And some pixie dust."

Unless Pan had been lying again, she and Henry had used the last of it when they jumped off of that cliff.

"There isn't any left," she told him in a flat tone. "Remember? You gave me the last of it when I went to find Henry."

She caught a glimpse of Henry shuffling what she guessed was uncomfortably as he remembered how he'd yanked her off the cliff and into the air as pixie dust shrouded them in a green glow, and his belief that it would work allowed it to do so instead of letting them free fall into the sea below.

"Actually," Tink interjected with a half step forward. "I have some."

Clearly, that was news to Pan. "Where? How much?"

She pulled a thin tube from her pocket and tapped on the glass with her brow drawn. It was a lot smaller than the one Adi had worn around her neck, black and easily concealed from prying eyes. Tinkerbell was probably saving the last of it for an emergency.

"Not a lot," she said with a frown. "Maybe if you'd stopped asking me for it when you ran out, there'd be more left."

"Are you sure you want to give it to us?" Adi asked. "If it's the last in existence...you deserve to keep it."

Tink marched forward and shoved it into her hand with a decisive nod. "If we're all about to die, you deserve to use it. I'm not a fairy anymore, anyway."

Adi looked down at it, lip between her teeth. "Thank you. And, Tink, I'm sorry."

"Tell me once we aren't dying anymore."

"Good plan," she replied. "Pan, what do I have to do?"

Now he seemed resigned to the fact that she was going through with this. Which was good, because by the look of his unfocused green eyes, she wasn't sure how much longer he would have to agree or disagree with her. "It's in the gold book on the table in my room. You've probably seen it before - there's a lock on it."

Adi had almost forgotten. But she nodded, because she knew exactly where to look.

Pan ripped one of the brown leather cuffs from his wrist and revealed a silver key hidden in a pocket sewed inside, and handed it to her. "Use this. Once you open it, find the sixth page and throw some of the pixie dust over it."

Despite the dire situation, she wondered if she would have time or dust to look through pages one through five. No, she decided, but if they made it through this and her plan worked she vowed that she would.

"Do you always go to such great lengths to hide things from me?"

"Only the important ones."

If he was trying to get her even more curious, he was succeeding. Adi decided Pan would be insufferable to the grave. She looked to Felix. "I'd ask you to come with me," she said. "But if he passes out I wouldn't put it past any of them to just get it over with and kill him."

Several of them sputtered in protest, but Adi turned and vanished from their sight with the pixie dust in one hand and the key in the other, leaving them indignant at an empty space in the middle of Skull Rock.

Once in Pan's - and hers, though she didn't like to say so - room, Adi thumbed through the stack of books on the low table at the foot of his bed: a dog-eared _Peter Pan_ by J.M. Barrie, a thick handwritten guide titled _Neverland_ , the authorless _Once Upon a Time_ , and lastly the small golden journal that Pan had told her about.

She pried it out, vaguely remembering it now and how all that time ago she'd desperately wondered what was inside but instead settled on reading the volume about the island. It seemed so long ago, and yet she was in the same seventeen-year-old body nearly five years later.

Shaking her head to remind herself of the importance of the task, Adi shoved the key into the lock. It clicked open and clattered to the floor a moment later without much prodding, like gravity wanted to claim it as its own as quickly as possible.

Every single page was blank. Puzzled, Adi turned the first one and was stunned to feel its weight pressing back against her hand, heavier than a sheet of paper should have been. When she ran a hand down its front, the smooth sensation had been replaced by something rough and sandpapery, like straw.

"Oh my god," she whispered to herself, stunned that Pan had put so much meticulous effort into something she surmised took a lot of magic.

The objects were literally _inside_ the pages.

Pages two and three both felt metallic, though the second was lighter, and the third had more of a definite shape to it. Four and five, light as air, felt like actual paper.

Then six, cold and heavy like two and three. Adi tipped Tink's vial and gently shook it, afraid she might accidentally use too much. It scattered out on her hand, looking more like grey sand than magical dust.

Adi sprinkled it over page six, willing the magic to work, and it glowed neon green seconds before it hit the paper and then disappeared into the whiteness. The more dust she fed the book, the faster the coin came into being: first a hazy circle, then becoming a dull bronze, finally showing off its thinly carved designs and hole punched through the middle.

And then, just like that, she picked it up.

Making a silent promise to come back later, she stood and gripped the coin in her left hand like a lifeline - which, she supposed, it was. She rolled Pan's key around in her hand and studied it with a frown; she wouldn't be able to find out what secrets the rest of the book held if she didn't have a key.

Adi shoved the dust into her pocket, thinking she'd be able to tell the others she had to use all of it, and believed in a clone of the key lying innocently in her palm. Immediately, a second one spawned in a cloud of violet. She pocketed the real one and held the fake to give back to Pan.

As she was about to teleport back to Skull Rock, it occurred to her that the boys were somewhere below, confused and undoubtedly angry with her. They had witnessed her and Max and Slightly almost die and then come back to life for reasons they couldn't fathom, and were now left in the dark while everything was figured out without their input.

Adi turned away from the window and returned to Skull Rock, swallowing down the guilt and hoping that if she saved them they would find a way to forgive her for all the times she had wronged them.

* * *

Even when her feet touched the stone floor, Adi realized she _still_ didn't know what she was doing. It seemed appropriate that she didn't, given the life-threatening circumstances, but she really wished she was more of a cautious planner.

"I got it," she stated when they noticed her arrival, which was obvious because she was standing with the magical object flat on her open palm for everyone to see.

Emma's eyes flickered from the coin to Adi. "You know what to do with it?"

"Uh..."

"Wonderful," said Regina. "Going through all the trouble of finding the stupid thing, and we aren't even sure if it'll work or not."

Adi studied the coin. It was made of copper - or perhaps bronze - metal in the slightly misshapen outline of a circle, a circular piece missing from the middle of it. The intricate carvings on one side held what she assumed to be stars overlooking an ocean, and on the other side, the word _never_ in the tiniest script she had ever seen.

Vaguely, she could recall herself lifting it to her eye in a mechanical motion, muttering the word printed on it, and the next thing she knew she was waking up to two arguing boys standing over her.

"What happened the last time you used it?" Snow asked gently, as if reading her mind. "Maybe do that again."

Adi hummed under her breath, rolling the coin around in her fingers thoughtfully. "I'm not sure if it'll work the same, but I can try."

When she pulled it back to take another look, she stopped. The writing that said _never_ had been erased, replaced with a different word in the exact same script: _enchant._ On the opposite side, she discovered that the picture was substituted for one that looked to be the rough outline of some sort of village underneath a blanket of uncertain clouds.

Felix peered over her shoulder upon noticing her furrowed brow. "What's wrong?"

"It changed," she replied as she turned it over in her fingers. "Is it supposed to do that?"

Pan looked like he'd been waiting for her to ask. "Its appearance shifts depending on where you want to go."

"What does it say?" Killian questioned, but Adi was already marching over to the hourglass with a sense of decisiveness she found the strength to muster in four seconds flat.

The closer she moved, the stronger a strange tug on her gut grew. On a whim, she looked up.

In the sky, among the constellation Gemini she had noticed earlier, a pinpoint of light that shined brighter than any star she had ever seen glowed. Just like, she realized, Neverland had shown itself to her the night of November seventeenth.

Repeating the same actions as then, Adi held the coin to her eye and looked through it at the object. Feeling stupid (and hoping that the coin's magic didn't work like Floo powder in _Harry Potter_ and that her barely coherent mumbling didn't land them in the middle of nowhere), Adi muttered, "enchant" under her breath.

Behind her, there was silence.

Nothing happened.

She turned to look at her friends and enemies waiting for her to do something else, and then shrugged. "I don't think it worked."

Killian arched an eyebrow at her. "Why did you feel the need to do all this standing on that platform? Feel the need for a stage, Fallon?"

The use of her old name brought no reaction, but something else he said struck her like a bolt of lightning.

"Not a stage," she said softly as she swiveled back to the hourglass - or lack thereof. "More like a...funeral pyre."

When she marched up to it, she hadn't thought twice about why until Killian pointed it out. But he brought up a good point - and it wasn't that his sister had a flair for dramatics.

Perhaps funeral pyre wasn't the right way to describe it, considering the lack of flames, but Pan understood what she was going to do almost immediately.

"Adeline -" he said with a hint of warning, but she wasn't listening.

Adi studied the mess of sand and wood and glass, and then with a quiet clang, dropped the coin into the heap. It melted into the pile, disappearing into the remains of what once was Neverland. For a single, solitary, heart-stopping second, nothing; and then the world erupted.


	27. End of Forever

**3.27 | End of Forever**

"And I never minded being on my own;  
then something broke in me  
and I wanted to go home."  
Wish That You Were Here - Florence + the Machine

* * *

FOR THE SECOND time that day and the thousandth in her life, Adi thought she might be dead.

She wasn't - which was evident by the erratic pulse of her heart so loud she could hear its drumbeat in her ears - but there was a moment in which she wondered if _this_ was the afterlife: the strange brightness pressing against her eyelids, burning like fire but twice as painful.

Then she opened her eyes.

The air itself was warm, too warm, and she wondered for a moment if she was suffocating under both it and the blinding light.

It dawned upon her that this was the sun.

"Jeez, someone turn off the lights," Adi half muttered, half groaned as she rubbed at her eyes in an attempt to get them used to the sudden change in illumination. After literal years of night, this was a very sudden and very unwelcome switch.

"Don't think that's possible," came Felix's reply somewhere off to her left, his voice oddly sharp to contrast with the haze that was her vision.

Squeezing her eyes shut, then blinking them open and closed a few times for good measure, Adi forced herself to get up and see instead of lying there, confused and blinded by the sunlight. The crash of waves against the outside of Skull Rock had amplified, as if the sea had gotten rougher in however much time had passed since she had dropped the coin into the sand of Neverland's fragmented hourglass.

"What happened?" Neal, already on his feet, was sifting through said pile of sand - perhaps in search of the coin to send his family home. "Did it work?"

Pan leapt up with a sudden abundance of energy and picked something up at the edge of where the hourglass used to stand. He pried it from the floor, face scrunched up in concentration. "I believe," he said as he held up a hunk of deformed, flattened copper for the room to see. "This is it."

"Great," Regina muttered as she yanked a hand through her hair. "Our only way out of this place, and you destroyed it."

Although disoriented, Adi still found enough essence of her regular self to summon an exasperated reply of, "If we hadn't, you'd be dead. You're _welcome_."

"Right, I'm sorry. Thank you so much for kidnapping my son, for being the reason all of us are here, and for dragging us into your problems," Regina spat with her face twisted in rage. "I'm forever in your debt."

"You're -"

"Guys," Emma cut in. "Come look at this."

She was halfway up the stairs, as if she had only just entered the skull's yawning mouth, wide eyes glimmering with excitement and a smile wider than Adi had ever seen plastered on her face. To be fair, the woman had been going through hell for the past week, but it was still a strange sight.

"What?" After making sure her husband was still alive, still breathing (he was, thankfully, which meant Adi was the same), Snow followed her daughter and they disappeared down the stone spiral stairs with two pairs of pattering footsteps and concealed whispers.

Charming and Neal went after them when they didn't return after a minute, followed by Killian and Tink. Henry, who she had only now realized was missing, must've been the first one to go.

Adi exchanged raised eyebrows with Felix.

"Pan?" she suddenly questioned, turning to look him in the eyes. Already, she could see them returning to their normal, not-bloodshot selves. "Did it work?"

"I'm not sure." He studied the remains of what he assumed to be the coin with a frown. "I'm not sure if it did what you wanted it to, or if it...reset the magic, so to speak."

 _Reset the magic?_ What did that even mean? This was becoming too much for Adi to wrap her head around, and she had been the one to instigate the idea of moving the island. That sounded crazy, too: _moving the island._

"Only one way to find out." She marched off down the steps, chin raised high in the illusion of confidence. Faking control over a situation didn't give her control of it, but it made her feel better.

The adults - and Henry - were bouncing excited ideas off of each other (each one more hopefully ridiculous than the last) while standing in a line on the edge of the sandbank that was the beginning of Skull Rock. They were pointing to something in the distance.

"What's so important?" Adi demanded. "You've seen Neverland a billion times - it's the place I'd think you'd _hate_ to see."

"That's because we're not looking at Neverland," Emma said in a matter-of-fact tone. "We're looking at what's beyond it."

 _Beyond it?_ The only thing beyond the island was ocean and more ocean, stretching on and on forever until it made your head ache to think of it, because what was supposed to be a passage to anywhere else in the world became a prison when no matter how far you swam you couldn't get any further than twenty meters away from the beach.

While she thought this, Adi barely registered what she was seeing instead of that confining sea. Because further past its evergreen jungle, replacing the never-ending expanse of deep blue, was a mass of land that encompassed the whole of her line of sight.

She blinked, unable to comprehend what was there. Maybe it was a trick of the light, or a dream she was having after the world went dark, and this was her way of tricking herself into freedom. Any moment now, she would wake to the endless night and be right back where she started.

Until the premise of escape from Neverland presented itself, she never considered wanting to leave. After she permanently bound herself to it via Dead Man's Peak's water, the idea had been cast aside. But the Dark One could heal her, even if she didn't want him to. It was possible. She could go...wherever she wanted.

"Is that...?" Felix's voice was quiet.

"The Enchanted Forest?" Pan finished for him in a question rather than a statement - something extremely unlike him.

Killian answered, "Aye."

"So...it worked?" Adi said more to herself than anyone else. "We actually... _moved_ Neverland?"

"It appears so," her brother replied with a side glance at her, but her gaze was locked on the coast. "Congratulations."

"Hm." She liked the sound of that - that she was the one responsible.

Maybe Pan had been right after all. Getting her on his side was vital, just not quite in the way he expected. And as she looked over at his returned steady and confident demeanor, she wondered if her refusal to comply worked out in his favor after all.

* * *

The initial shock wore off for Henry and his family relatively quickly - apparently, they'd seen enough that not much surprised them anymore.

Adi, however, felt quite like she was walking around in a dream, and every time she reminded herself that she was very much awake, she glanced back out at the horizon where an _entirely different realm_ lay out before her and it returned.

"Adeline," Pan said, drawing her from her thoughts. She swiveled to look at him, eyebrows raised. "Did you hear any of that?"

"Um," she muttered, debating lying. "No."

"You can either go back to camp with Felix or come with us to the captain's ship."

That was new: since when did Pan let her choose what she wanted to do? He usually told her what to do and she decided for herself anyway; the freedom of choice caught her off guard.

Her eyes flickered to her brother. "I'll go with you. But I'll take Felix to camp and meet you there."

Without waiting for a reply, knowing it would be embarrassing for her to answer, she reached out to grab Felix's arm and then disappeared alongside him, visualizing a space in the bushes right outside of the compound where no sentries took watch.

It was easier, she supposed, to hide than to face her guilt about leaving them in the dark.

"Why are we -" Felix started, but stopped when he saw her face. She wasn't looking at him, but her lip was between her teeth and her brow drawn, her hands clenched into fists. He decided to rephrase. "What's wrong?"

"I've spent all this time being mad at Pan for keeping things from me, and what have we been doing with our friends this whole time? Half of them didn't even know what the real goal of having Henry here was in the first place. How am I supposed to pretend like that's okay?"

"I'll tell them," he replied with zero hesitation. "I'll tell them everything. This isn't all on you."

"Isn't it?" she asked, blue eyes wide. "I've the one who was always around while you and Pan were off doing whatever - I had plenty of opportunities to tell them something. Anything."

Felix's reply was curt, leaving no room for further discussion. "It isn't your fault." Then he paused, studying her carefully. "That isn't the only reason why you aren't coming with me."

Adi's gaze shifted. "I want to talk to Killian."

"Okay," he said with absolutely no expression. She wished she could tell what he was thinking the way he could tell what she was. "I'll go talk to my brothers, you go talk to yours."

With that, Felix shoved his way through the branches barring his way and vanished even in the daylight. His need for dramatic exits didn't die, no matter what realm they were in.

Adi pictured the beach where the _Jolly Roger_ was most likely docked, imagined herself there, and was gone.

The world shifted - literally. Last time she had visited the beach, darkness had taken over the sky and reigned with its multitude of stars glimmering against the endless ocean. But now, the sun threw itself against the choppy waves, and the landmass of a not-so-foreign land replaced the sea.

Over to her left, Adi caught sight of nine figures beside the ship she used to call her home, and after a moment of tense hesitation, began to make her way over to them. Undoubtedly, it would be uncomfortable to ask to speak with her brother alone after attempting to kill him on multiple occasions, especially when he was ready to leave and get back to his good old life without her.

"Took you a while," Pan commented once she was within close enough distance. "Why'd you come?"

Regina, Emma, and her parents were talking in a clump closer to the shore, and maybe it was the lack of all eyes on her that made her brave.

Ignoring Pan altogether save for a quick second of eye contact, she said to Killian, "I need to speak with you."

He looked to be attempting to suppress his look of mild confusion and utter surprise. But all the same, he followed her to the edge of the jungle, so close her face was shrouded in the sunlight-dappled shadows of the trees.

"Tell me what happened," Adi said, her voice quiet. "I spent so long listening to what Pan told me that I forgot to ask for your side of everything."

Something akin to shock flashed across his face. "Why have you decided to question him now?"

Chancing a glance over to the boy in question, she was amazed to see he wasn't looking in their direction. "With all the lies I've been told, a couple more wouldn't surprise me. I'm kind of expecting them by now," she said. "I recently remembered what he said to me when I asked him why he chose me to help him. Something along the lines of having a preexisting grudge against most of the people who came to save Henry."

"You think he lied in order to get you further on his side?" Killian clarified as he rubbed a hand over his stubbled chin. "And it took you this long to figure that out?"

"Would you just give me your testimony or whatever so we can get this over with?"

He chuckled, and then began the telling of how when she didn't return from the queen's for a few days, he started looking for her. All throughout the woods, all the way up to Regina's palace where he attempted to confront the queen herself but was thrown out by the palace guard and told his sister had escaped after she'd been given her assignment to kill Snow White. And Killian, desperate, believed them and left to track down his supposedly runaway sister.

"I never forgot about you," he finished, and finally looked at her. For the entirety of his explanation, he'd had his eyes locked on either the various rings adorning his fingers or the horizon line or anything besides her. "I just gave up hope."

Adi tilted her head to the side, twisting the edge of her shirt between her fingers. The story was extremely similar to the one Pan had told her, but out of Killian's mouth, it seemed more justified for him to give up hope and focus on other matters. Rather than immediate abandonment, it was more of...a gradual loss of optimism.

"Okay," she said after a pause. "I believe you. And I'm sorry."

Killian arched an eyebrow. "It isn't that simple, Fallon."

"Adi," she reminded him. "I know it isn't that simple. Thank you for being honest. I'm sorry I didn't listen earlier. I know this doesn't fix what I did, but I just wanted you to know before you left."

A single beat passed in which Adi appraised him with a calculating look, and then she spun as well as she could on the sand and marched back over to where the others were waiting. Despite the fact that she believed her brother's excuses, there was still the fact that she had tried to kill him a few different times, that she had hated him with everything inside of her for longer than she cared to admit.

A large enough chasm existed between them that she doubted either would be brave enough to cross. But it gave her comfort to know that she had listened to one brother, and the rest she would hear once the adults were gone.

Pan reached for his pocket the moment they returned, and produced the same red box he'd trapped the Dark One in with the crimson mist and magic. "Rumplestiltskin is inside of this. I'd appreciate it if you left him inside until you've gone, as I'm not sure he'd be thrilled to see me."

Regina scoffed, but reached out to take it anyway. "What is this thing?" she asked as she looked over the array of ancient-looking graphics scattered over it.

"Be careful of it," he replied in lieu of an answer, in his cryptic fashion as usual. Adi didn't miss how he said, be careful _with_ it, be careful _of_ it.

There was no need for goodbyes, all things considered, and so Regina and Killian both stepped onto the _Jolly Roger_ first with no inkling of a goodbye. Snow and Charming were next, arms around each other in true True Love fashion ( _gross_ , Adi thought). Then Emma with Neal, both of whom gave Adi a short nod and Pan nothing. Tink wasn't looking at either Pan or Adi, but at the island she had called home behind them; she connected eyes with her former roommate and then was on the deck.

Only Henry remained, by himself with his two captors despite the lengths the adults had gone to get him back. Struggling to get the words out right, he looked at Adi and choked out, "Thanks for not killing me."

"Uh," she stuttered, utterly baffled as she stared at the boy that was supposed to save her but that she ended up saving instead. "Sure thing, kid."

* * *

Adi and Pan found Felix back at camp surrounded by a ring of Lost Boys. Unlike her fears, they didn't look angry (possibly a little irritated) with him. The fear in her stomach quelled, at least until Pan cleared his throat and they turned as one to look at him.

That was when the fury came. A tidal wave of voices rained down - not at her, she realized, but at Pan - as sharp as knives.

The air seemed to thicken even in the growing warmth of the new daylight, and Adi took a quick step back toward Felix, who caught her by the arm before she could bump into him and muttered, "They've been waiting for him."

"I can tell," she hissed back. "They're able to kill him now, you know. Like, it's physically possible."

"They won't,"

Judging by how often she was tempted to kill him even when he was immortal, Adi didn't trust that assertion. She scrunched up her nose and listened for a moment to what they were saying, and nearly laughed when Max said something about how he had to tell them things or they couldn't do anything to help anything - all they wanted to do was help. And who was Pan to tell them that he didn't need them?

Adi shook her head. She'd said the same thing.

"I need to take care of something." She suddenly was glad the blame fell on shoulders other than her own - most likely because she was the one who was always at camp, the one who they thought followed directions rather than making them, the one who sympathized the most with the boys. "Make sure they don't kill him, alright?"

Although she wasn't sure why she cared, she stayed until Felix gave her a confused narrow of his eyes and a sharp nod of affirmation and then teleported to Pan's room for the second time that day.

Seeing it in daytime was disorienting. The candles lined along the side of the room and across the verticals of the table, now unnecessary, were only trailing smoke into the ceiling. Feeling strange although it was justified, Adi blew them out.

The sand-colored journal was still lying on the table from a few hours previous, closed and locked tight though she'd left it open. She unlocked it slowly, cringing when a small click sounded, nervous that she would be caught even through the voices from outside the open window.

She pulled the pixie dust from her pocket and shook it gently to estimate how much remained. There wasn't much, from the feel of it, but it was hard to tell when the dust weighed next to nothing. When she uncorked it, she was afraid for a moment that she would find it to be empty.

Though depleted from when Tink gave it to her, there was enough left for the first two pages. After that, Adi supposed, she would have to either guess, or find some other way for the book to reveal its secrets.

The first page, after a sizeable portion of dust that made Adi cringe, revealed an object that looked like a child's play toy: a doll made of straw, perhaps once colorful but faded by sunlight and years of use. It was frayed at the edges and the string tying the middle together was beginning to become untwined.

Frowning, she set it aside and went to the second paper. The shape of an ovular container that looked similar to a perfume bottle appeared, and when she uncorked the stopper, she nearly dropped it in surprise.

Pixie dust. The thing was filled to the brim with the stuff, so much that it would tip over the edges if she moved the bottle without care. Suppressing a grin, she dumped a quarter of it over the next several pages until she hit one that felt like any old sheet of paper - the seventh.

Then Adi pulled every single object from Pan's hidden book of secrets - or perhaps they were lies - and held them all in turn, piling them in a ring around her. The doll, the dust, a heart-shaped locket with a scripted _W_ etched into it, two scrolls of paper, and a pair of shiny silver daggers with worn black grips.

The knives, she realized with a start, were the ones she had left behind when she moved to the western side of the island. How nostalgic of Pan to keep something she always had at her side in case of a fight.

The dual scrolls of paper were drawings, one of Henry and the other of her. Both were wrinkled from use and each had a subtitle at the bottom scribbled in the same handwriting the book about Neverland was written in: _Truest Believer?_

Pan found her like that a few minutes later, staring into the gray eyes of the charcoal version of herself, mouthing the words with her eyebrows drawn in confusion.

He cleared his throat and she flinched so violently she dropped the paper. It fluttered to the ground and rolled back up into a cylinder before it could even hit the floor next to the other items she'd taken from his notebook.

"Having fun?"

"No," Adi replied with an unfailing amount of confidence, looking up at him from where she sat crisscrossed on the floor. "I'm very confused, actually."

"Well, that's a shame," Pan said scathingly. "I wouldn't want you to be confused after invading my privacy."

"Don't get sarcastic with me; I don't appreciate that tone." She held up the necklace by its chain and let the pendant swing back and forth like a pendulum. "Explain."

"I thought it'd be obvious. It's Wendy's."

"You stole it from her? For what?"

"It's how I contacted those idiot brothers of hers. I enchanted it to -"

"Be like a walkie talkie?"

"I'm not entirely sure what that means," he said slowly, frowning. "But I connected it to one of the necklaces Michael wore so I could communicate with him."

"Walkie talkies," Adi confirmed with a nod, then held up the straw doll. "What about this?"

"It's nothing," Pan muttered as he crossed the room to sit on the edge of his bed and leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. Even somewhat level with Adi, she still felt like she had to crane her neck to see him.

"That doesn't sound like nothing."

"I don't want to talk about it," he snapped, then tilted his head to the side with a calculating look. "Why don't we discuss more pressing matters?"

Adi looked up from studying Wendy's locket to stare at him. She held out the necklace for him to see again. "Like why you've left Wendy in her cage when we could've easily let her go back to the Enchanted Forest with the others?"

Pan rolled his eyes. "I simply forgot about her. She'll be set free now that we don't need her anymore."

"You're sick, you know that?" Adi shook her head, pressing her lips together in a thin line. "The way you've treated her is disgusting and terrible, and I hope she never has to see your face again."

"She wasn't what I was talking about, but you can be the one to take her off of the island if it makes you happy."

She wrinkled her nose. "Since when do you care about what makes me happy?"

"Since I remembered we're supposed to be in love."

The words sounded wrong coming out of anyone's mouth - but his? Adi felt her throat go dry, her stomach clench as she registered what he'd said and immediately reacted with, "Shut up."

"Ignoring it won't make it go away," he chided with the tone of a parent reprimanding their child - a strange way for him to speak to her. And since when did was he one to challenge issues head-on? This was Peter Pan, master of crafty evasiveness; direct confrontation was more like Adi.

"I realize what happened the day I got my memories back," she replied evenly. "But don't think that us having 'true love' or whatever changes anything. Nothing has changed in the past five years, and it won't now - not this way. Got it?"

"I thought Henry's grandmother would've talked some sense into you," Pan said with a smirk. "She's supposed to be the model for true love."

"I'm sorry, are you implying that you _want_ me to be in love with you? I understand your need for the boys to think you're some kind of king or god, but me? If we're supposed to be in love, whatever, but I'm not going to let it happen just because you're telling me it has to be that way. You can't force love, and I'm pretty sure I don't love you right now."

Truth be told, Adi hadn't the slightest idea what love should've felt like. There were no butterflies in her stomach, no weak knees or stuttered speech like the stupid love-struck girls in books and television shows, no thought that _yes, he's the only person I've ever wanted to be with. This must be fate._

"But could you?"

Adi repeated that question in her head - _could I could I could I -_ until the thought of the words made her sick of looking at his face, at the green of his mischievous eyes, at the soft upward sweep of his hair, at the teeth cutting into the edge of his lip.

She paused to study him with a calculating expression. "Do you want me to?"

Pan looked surprised at that. "I don't know."

And _there_ were the words she'd never expected to hear out of his mouth. Adi took a second to look back at his journal, at the secrets he had kept from her. Was he lying about this? Simply keeping another secret - this one much bigger than the notebook - to save her from being forced into something she didn't feel?

"Then I don't know either. But we have time."

"But we don't have forever." Pan scowled, as if the words tasted bitter in his mouth. He was right - the moment they exited Neverland's realm, they gave up their immortal lives. That was simply the price they had to pay.

"Of course we don't. We never did," she replied as she stood and shot him a smile. "Isn't that what makes everything so much more exciting?"

* * *

The ocean that night was jarring. When Adi stumbled out of the jungle's darkness and onto the semi-lit expanse of the beach she knew well, her mind had fooled her into believing that the transferal of Neverland was no more than a dream, an insane fantasy devised to keep her sane while knowing she was allowing an innocent child to be murdered.

Instead, she was smacked in the face with the dark outlines of buildings on the horizon, black even against the night, their definite silhouettes a reminder that she was here. Now.

Here and there, torches blazed like lampposts; here and there, a shouts of either joy or anger emanated from one of the seaside structures - but otherwise, the world was blanketed in a peaceful, shadowy silence.

A little ways down the beach, someone called her name. Starting, Adi turned to see a circle of figures sprawled out on the sand near the place where the _Jolly Roger_ had been anchored hours before in the daylight. Its only remnants were the small indents in the sand where its hull and anchor had punctured the earth.

Those would soon be washed away with the tide, erasing any memory of the people who had been there before.

"I was wondering where you guys had gone." Adi grinned as she moved closer to the boys, and upon further inspection discovered it was the few who had disappeared a few hours prior: Leo, Max, Slightly, Felix, Ace, Devon. "What're you doing all the way out here?"

Slightly smiled back at her, wide and sunny despite having almost died mere hours ago, most likely a worse death than hers. "We knew you'd come out here eventually. We wanted to get something for you before you did."

Arching an eyebrow, Adi sat toward the back of the group next to Felix. "Oh, yeah? Do I want to know what?"

From where he was laying down on the sand with his arms behind his back, Slightly pulled a folded piece of paper from the inside of his cloak and stretched out to hand it to her. It was wrinkled, old, weathered, creased on the edges like that of a dog-eared book. And when she unfurled it, it crackled so much she thought it might snap in half like a twig.

Inside, Adi found a beautifully penned ink drawing that spanned the entire page. Cursive lined the edges and the middle, which was encompassed entirely by a perfect circle and curved lines like a latitude and longitude grid. Inside were lines connecting dots; each line was labeled in a formal script.

"Oh my god," she whispered, feeling something expand in her chest the longer she stared at it. "It's a map."

The circle was the sky, the dots the stars, the lines the constellations, the words their names.

"Where did you get this?" she asked, breathless as she traced over the ink with a feather-light touch.

"Pan took a couple of us over to explore this afternoon - we bought it from some old lady on the street. She said it was one of a kind, but I'm pretty sure she was lying," Max replied with a shrug.

"Thank you," Adi said quietly, looking up at all of them. "Not just for this, but everything. I thought I lost all of you today."

"You didn't," Felix reminded her, ignoring the eye roll that she replied with.

"That's what's terrifying about family," Slightly said. "It gives you so much to lose."

Adi felt a rush of love for every single one of them, a surge of pride at the family she had claimed as her own. "It also gives you something to fight for."

There was a rush of wind beside her as the words left her mouth, and everyone looked up to see Pan there - alone. Adi wondered what the other boys left back at camp were doing.

"I see they gave you your souvenir," he said as he sat down beside her, as if that afternoon's conversation simply hadn't happened. The elusive boy she knew had suddenly returned, paired with that cunning smirk and wildfire flickering in his emerald eyes.

"Yes," she answered. "I was just saying thank you."

No one replied. So Adi leaned over her new star map and matched it to the world above her, wondering what new stories lay above her simply waiting to be told.

Neverland's unfamiliar sky had made her feel like she was suffocating, like it was a sign that she didn't belong and deserved to be pushed out and sent back to her dull life in Storybrooke where she supposedly belonged. It had made her feel out of place.

But right here, right now, she didn't feel out of place in the slightest. With her best friend to her right and her maybe-true-love to her right and all of her friends scattered around her, she felt quite like she belonged, no matter what the stars told her.

"Alright, boys," Adi said as she leaned back on her palms, savoring the grit of the sand on her skin that grounded her in this moment, with people she loved more than anything in the world – or worlds.

Maybe this was the end of their forever, but it was the beginning of a new adventure: one of the unknown. Isn't that the beauty of life: the uncertainty? To be surprised with each new twist and turn; to find your way out of the labyrinth? What's the point of a human life if you know exactly when it will end?

"Let's see what's written in these stars."

* * *

 **this is it! I hope you liked it, and if you didn't, thank you for reading this far anyway. next chapter will be an author's note, and that will be all for _inferno_.**


	28. Afterword

i leave you with this quote, one of my favorites from the story: "of course we don't have forever. we never did. isn't that what makes everything so much more exciting?"

when I began writing this, I was in the beginning of 10th grade. I'm now in my second week of 12th. I hold stories inside me when I write them, and this was there for too long, but I couldn't let go until I wrote it down completely and totally. dramatic? absolutely, but in my opinion you can't be a writer without a bit of a flair for the dramatic.

maybe you're finishing this last chapter wondering what the hell happened, how the hell any of the plot I devised was in any was plausible. and in truth, maybe it isn't. but I tried so many different endings, and this was the only one that remotely sat right with me.

it was _extremely_ important to me that adi didn't become one of those lovesick girls in the last chapter. after all, why make her so hell bent on refusing to fall to (or for) pan for the entirety of the story, only to have her realize _wait, I do love him_ at the very end?

that might just be my personality bleeding through into adi, but I tried to make her very different from me. pretty much our only similarities are the curly hair, left handedness, love for sarcasm, and distaste for love (although she isn't asexual like I am).

anyway, I wanted to leave it up to you to decide what happens after chapter 27. if adi and pan admit they love each other, or if she says hell no, if felix tells pan he's in love with him, if girls come to the island to add to the lost ones, if adi loves one of them, if she takes a giant jug of water from dead man's peak and travels around the enchanted forest searching for a way to heal her dreamshade poisoning without rumplestiltskin's help, or if everything freezes in time exactly where I left it.

that's the beauty of an indefinite ending – that it isn't definite. I don't want to say 'here is what happened to them for the rest of their lives, ever, the end'. so you get to choose.

and I want to thank each of you, even if you read this without a single sign that you were – no favorite, no follow, no review - thank you. but if you did any of those, thanks a million. every notification makes me smile. i didn't write this for anyone except myself, but the idea that other people might like it means everything to me. truly.

\- steph :)

note: i'm working on a bunch of projects, but i'm a perfectionist so they might not be posted for a while. keep an eye on my profile and my wattpad account (orionauriga) if you'd like to see anything in the future!

another note: even though this is completed, i still absolutely love seeing notifications for it. let me know what you liked and/or didn't like - i'd love to hear!


	29. Epilogue: Close to Home

**Epilogue | Close to Home**

"I'm forever chasing after time,  
but everybody dies;  
if I could buy forever at a price,  
I would buy it twice."  
Immortal - Marina & the Diamonds

* * *

THERE WAS NOTHING to break the fall, so Adi tumbled toward imminent death with increasing speed and decreasing patience.

All she could see in flashes between the darkness was the vague outline of something dark and shapeless, blackened by fire, and further beyond was what she presumed to be the dark shape of water. In the short time that she was falling, she tried to conjure some kind of protective force to break the fall so her entire body wouldn't shatter on impact, but the attempt was futile.

Wherever she was, there was no magic.

The thought barely had time to make her afraid, because as soon as it arrived, Adi collided.

Adeline Morris realized three things in a very short span of time.

One: she had landed in water.

Two: _they_ had landed in water. Three other figures surrounded her, floating in various states of injury in the ominously still sea. It wasn't quite cold enough to be an ocean, but Adi's mouth tasted decidedly of salt.

With some difficulty, Adi dragged all three of the still breathing boys through the water, toward the nearby shore. It was hard to tell where the dark ocean ended and the dark land began, but once they became too heavy she left them to float in the shallow tide.

They were remarkably close to the shore. Any closer and they would've either hit the land or smashed into the bottom of the sea with the sheer force of their fall. The thought was as terrifying as it was exhilarating, and a pulse of wicked energy shot through her.

This wasn't what she had intended when she threw that magic bean. All she knew was that she had to get away, and she had thought of the only place she ever really wanted to be: _home._

But this was not Neverland, nor was it anywhere in the Enchanted Forest, as far as she could tell. And wherever she was, she had dragged her friends into it as well.

Adi waded onto shore, leaving her friends face-up in the space where the tide lapped at the sand as she began to assess their surroundings, all the while cursing her own stupidity.

The landscape was barren, a skeleton of charred trees and shattered darkness. Above, the sun was shielded by an overcast sky. Everything was bleak and bare and grey. The acrid stench of smoke burned her lungs; the air smelled of death.

"Something awful happened here," the voice of Peter Pan said from behind her, and Adi turned to face him and the other two.

"Yeah," Max agreed, propping himself up on his elbows to look up at both of them. "We all just ate shit."

Felix, facedown in the sand, said to the ground, "I'm going to strangle you, Max."

Adi was inclined to agree, right after she got around to throttling herself, but found that she wasn't listening to the conversation anymore.

Because she knew this place. Once she thought of it by name, she wondered how in the world it wasn't the first thing she had thought of. It should've come to her as soon as she glimpsed it during her fall. The thrill of magic was no longer running through her veins, but this place was completely, irrevocably, and definitely hers.

The third realization was the only one she said aloud. It came tinged with dread and the certainty that, after evading it for so many years, this was the place she was going to die.

"We're in Neverland."

Pan whipped around to stare at her, but she wasn't looking. He grabbed her by the arm and forced her to look at him. "I'm sorry, _what_?"

Adi wrenched her arm from his grasp. "I'm sure of it. Look at this place — don't you feel it?"

"How is this even possible?" he asked. "When we moved the island, this realm ceased to exist. We took the magic from it, and it died."

"Or," Felix cut in, rising and wringing the water from his shirt, "It didn't happen the way we thought it would."

Adi knelt and brushed her fingers along the dirt; it felt like ash in her hands. "It's like a ghost," she murmured. Her voice trembled.

 _Home_ , she had asked. And home it had given her. But home had been removed, home was still there, home was still home. Perhaps, she allowed herself to think, there was a part of her that longed for home still — the real home, and what it had been before everything went absolutely wrong.

"Where were you thinking of when the bean fell?" Max was at her elbow. One hand was on her shoulder, the other was on the ring dagger hooked into his belt.

All Adi could see was dead trees: lifeless, black, bleak. Everything inside of her was screaming _wrong, wrong, wrong, this is so wrong._ "Home," she said quietly, and Pan started like he'd been shocked.

Because she wouldn't turn to him, he moved in front of her so that he blocked her view of whatever was left of the island. She wondered what horrors, what treasures, what memories awaited them in the depths of that black forest.

She wanted her bow, she wanted her magic, she wanted her bed. But most of all, she wanted her home back, and she hadn't even known it until she was faced with the scarred remnants of what she had called home.

"Well," Pan said, frowning. "How the bloody hell are we supposed to get back?"

Even two short years out of immortality, Adi was still not used to how much older Pan looked already. His eyes were the same startling emerald green, his hair the same russet, but cropped shorter and styled neater. He was leaner, stronger, taller.

But Adi felt worse than ever. She had been seventeen — here — for so long that eighteen had felt heavy and now nineteen was nearly unbearable. She wondered, then, what that would mean for the rest of her life. Immortality seemed a sweet release now.

"No fucking idea." Felix stood beside Pan, and Adi wondered if they felt the weight like she did. The two of them and Max and the rest of the boys seemed so much stronger, so vital, so alive. Adi felt like whatever fire was inside of her was slowly being extinguished.

Before, aging hadn't felt definite. The day after her birthday would feel the same as the day before. But being stuck at seventeen for the better part of five years made aging tangible, made it easy to tell how she was growing older with every second. Nineteen was not old, she knew. And yet she could see Peter, twenty in appearance only, and Felix, twenty-one, growing older and being okay with it.

A year or two above her was not old, and she wished she could bring herself to think otherwise.

"You alright, love?"

It took Adi a second to realize Pan was staring her in the eyes, and the question was meant for her. For once, she didn't protest the term of endearment.

For the sake of her pride, she said, "Of course I am."

But even as Pan turned to look at the forest — or what had once been the forest — he was still eyeing her from his periphery. Adi had been around him for so long that she knew every one of his tricks, and they still bothered her just as much as they had six years ago.

Adi shrugged Max's hand from her. "Let's go, boys. We aren't going to get anything accomplished if we're just standing here."

She stomped her way into the ghost of the woods, hoping that pretending she was okay for long enough would make it true.

* * *

In the middle of the forest, Peter had two thoughts. One: they were completely and utterly lost. Two: Adeline Morris would be damned if she admitted she was wrong about being completely and utterly lost.

Far enough ahead of them that their voices wouldn't carry, Adeline trailed her way through trees, running her fingers along their skeletons as if her touch alone might bring them back to life.

Behind Peter, Max and Felix sent jabs back and forth as if they weren't potentially trapped in this purgatory.

"As soon as we get back, I'm gonna —"

"Oh, you're gonna what?"

"Fuck you up, Felix! I'm gonna throw hands with your stupid ass."

"I'd love to see you try."

"Listen, pal, I swear to god —"

"Hey!" Peter stopped short so quickly that Felix rammed into him, all height and all muscle, but Peter stood his ground. "Now is not the time."

"Stop it, all of you!" Adeline called from the front. She'd stopped, and now stood with her arms crossed over her chest and a scowl pulling at her lips. Even in the half-light, it was easy to see how much older she was: she had the same dark curls and icy eyes, but she wore her hair pinned back rather than in her face, and there were purple circles beneath her eyes.

But just as when they had first met, she held herself with the same composure of confidence verging on arrogance, of self-assuredness and pride. Her eyes were steel and her hands were fists, but they were twitching like she wanted to reach for a weapon that she did not have. Watching Adeline stand there, older and yet still unbearably the same, Peter absolutely loved her.

And he absolutely hated her for it.

Peter, Max, and Felix stopped in front of her, silent. She waved a vague hand to the area behind her. "Don't you recognize this?"

What 'this' was, Peter wasn't entirely sure until Adeline tugged a few branches aside to reveal a clearing swathed in the same ashen, hollow nothing. A ring of blackened trees surrounded a ring of emptiness. But there was nothing there that he recognized, nothing that made him think _this is what home used to be._

Adeline moved to stand in the center of the nothing. Her hands were twisted into fists, but that did little to hide the fact that she was shaking.

"What, Adi?" Felix asked, circling the edge of the clearing. "How can you even tell what this was?"

"Don't you get it?" she nearly cried, whipping around. Peter was shocked to see that there were tears pooling in her eyes. "This is where we used to live."

She pointed a trembling hand up at the trees, where the carcasses of wooden boxes had been, and then at the ground where she stood, which was a ring of ash deeper in the earth than the rest of the ground.

Peter stared. The cabins he had made in the trees were still there, but skeletons, just like the rest of the island. He knew, somewhere inside of himself, that those same cabins and this same island were carbon copied in the Enchanted Forest, that they were not gone, just lost to him now, but it was difficult to remember while he was staring at the very place they had used to be.

This was home, he realized, and no matter what anyone told him, the Neverland in the Enchanted Forest was not the same Neverland that had once been here, surrounded only by ocean and swathed in magic.

The magic had been stripped away. It occurred to Peter how empty he felt, how old. Old was not a bad thing, he knew, but he was suddenly acutely aware that he was not eighteen anymore, that he was twenty and would soon be twenty-one, and after that the years would never stop coming. He would be forever grappling with the image of his eighteen-year-old self as he aged in real time.

When he looked at Adeline, he knew she was thinking the same thing. She looked so different because she was so much older — only by two years, but older all the same.

And Felix, who had always been older than him, felt eons beyond him now. Max, sixteen when he had arrived on Neverland all that time ago, was no longer small and lithe, but solid and tall, the same age Peter had been when he ruled over Neverland.

"Home," Adeline whispered, and Peter felt the word settle over his skin and sink into him until it reached his core and stayed there, resting, fluttering in time with his heartbeat. He brushed a hand against the tree that had held his own cabin and found he was aching.

To his right, Felix stood, silent as a shadow and twice as angry. His jaw was locked, his eyes hard. "This isn't home," he said, tone bitter and cold. He pressed a palm to the tree beside them and frowned when it came away coated in ash, then shook out his hand and watched the flecks flutter back to the charred earth. "Not anymore. Don't you get it? This is nothing."

From behind him, Max blew a heavy breath out his mouth and ran a hand over his shaved curly hair. "He's right, Pan. We need to find a way home."

Adeline moved forward, then, quickly, her movements as fast as flickering flames. "I wished for home, and this is what we got. What if it's telling us that this...this is really our home?"

"Adi," Felix said in that patronizing way he sometimes had with her, and she jabbed a finger in his face to silence him.

"Don't you dare tell me it isn't."

He raised his eyebrows and started again. "You wished for what our home once was, but this isn't it. You said it yourself — we weren't _meant_ to live forever, and it's a stupid wish to believe that we could."

Taken aback, she took a dejected step back. The fire in her eyes seemed to quell with his every word. "I'm not going to apologize for wishing, Felix. You should know me better than that."

Peter knew better than anyone the power of a wish. He had wished for a way out and had been granted it. Adi, too had wished for a way out. Felix had wished for power. Max had wished for a family. The rest of the boys had similar wishes for a place to belong, whether they voiced it or not, and that was why they had ended up in Neverland in the disjointed, fractured family of which Peter was the head.

Peter was in the midst of wondering if his family would cease to be so after all his boys reached a certain age, his eyes still fixed on the assuming figures of Adeline and Felix, when a deafening roar that he recognized immediately assaulted his senses.

Max gave an inhuman screech and scrambled to cover his ears, but Adeline and Felix exchanged grim looks with Peter. The sound, too, was inhuman, the noise of a thing that had no business being sentient, being alive — if alive what it even was — a noise that haunted his nightmares still.

Peter thought that it would've died with the island, that it had disappeared into the nether between realms and been lost forever.

But fate has an odd way of making the impossible and the unfortunate all to real at the worst of times, and it was this that Peter thought as he watched the outline of the Neverland Shade appear from between darkened trees. Anger, Peter supposed, was all too natural, but he couldn't help the bubble of fear that the sight of the creature brought out in him. Perhaps if he convinced himself that he wasn't afraid he would make it true.

* * *

Not only had Adi left her bow and daggers back in the Enchanted Forest's Neverland, it seemed she had also left her luck behind, lodged somewhere in the spaces between her arrows or perhaps in the pocket of a jacket left in her cabin.

Things had been going well, or so she thought. There was the persistently nagging voice in the middle of her mind: _what if what if what if what if_ that refused her peace, and that voice was screaming at the top of its voice now — not _what if, what if,_ but this time in fear.

Even so, she steeled herself and squared her shoulders. "I thought you died," she said to the Neverland Shade as evenly as she could.

It was a hazy thing, the silhouetted shadow of an expressionless and golden-eyed boy. Pan had a shadow, too, but it was nowhere near as dark or as terrifying. There was something especially horrible about not knowing where this creature had come from.

Max, the only one armed, hooked a ring dagger around either hand and waited. He was strong but not impulsive, and would wait to attack rather than shoot first and ask questions later — Adi was unsure if that was good or bad.

The Shade didn't have one voice, it had a thousand, layered over each other like it had consumed souls of the damned and forced them to speak for it. "I can never die if I was not alive to begin with," it said. "I thought I would be left in peace for the rest of my existence, but it seems not even you can allow me that luxury, Adeline Morris."

She gritted her teeth at the use of her full name, hating the power it held over and the way it knew so much about her without even trying. It was as if, with one sweep of those golden eyes, it had her all figured out.

Pan stepped in line with Adi, expression unreadable. "How are we here? You said that when we moved Neverland out of this realm, it would cease to exist."

If the Shade had a mouth, it would've frowned. "A realm cannot be created in the same way it cannot be entirely destroyed. You are standing on the corpse of your home, the shell of what Neverland left behind. It is in between, neither living nor dead, and as such your existence here should be impossible."

"I'll show you impossible —" Adi surged forward, but Pan held an arm out and she stopped short so she wouldn't smash into him.

In a slightly more measured tone, Felix said, "Can you help us get back home? Coming here was a mistake."

"It was," the Shade agreed. "The three of you made many mistakes in your time here, and even after your reign has ended you've returned to make more."

"If you let us leave we won't have to make any more," Adi said, pushing Pan's arm away from her midsection. "There's no magic, no bean, no way to make a portal." Then she dared to ask, "... _is_ there a way out?"

"No."

"You said that before," she said, accusatory. "And yet I managed to find a way then. Why should I believe you now?"

"Because you have nothing left, Adeline Morris. You have no defenses and no place to go. You wished for a home and that is what you recieved."

"I wished to _go_ home, not _for_ a home."

"I know of your intentions," it continued as if she had not spoken. "You seek a window to immortality yet again — you've discovered that a temporary life is not a thing you wish to have anymore."

"You're wrong," Adi bit out.

"You're lying," the Shade retorted.

"Even if she is, I'm not," Pan cut in. "I'm not looking for immortality — I'm looking for a way back to my friends."

The Shade gave Pan an expressionless stare — possibly more expressionless than its usual face. "There is no way away from here."

Adi was absolutely seething. The sight of this thing, yet again, telling her it was hopeless, yet again, was enough to make her blood boil. She surged forward, hissing through her teeth, "I swear to fu —" but Felix pulled her back, away from a thing she probably couldn't fight even if she was armed.

Pan slid into place before the Shade, Max lingering hesitantly behind him, and Felix seized this opportunity to take Adi off to the side. She felt like a child being put in time-out by an authoritarian parent.

"Hey," Felix said hotly. "Cool it, alright? We aren't going to get anything solved if you curse out an immortal, all-powerful being that probably knows how to get us a ticket home."

"That thing pisses me off," she shot back. "I would throttle it if it wasn't made out of nothing." She turned back. It didn't look like nothing, standing there, talking to Pan.

It was then that she realized something very different about Pan: he wasn't talking in that arrogant, manipulative way of his. He was speaking levelly, measuring the weight of his words before he said them. It was a change Adi still had yet to find in herself.

"I know," Felix said, drawing her attention back to him. "But just sit this one out. Pan's got it under control."

She hated trusting him like this — she wanted to be able to trust herself.

In the middle of opening her mouth to reply, that roar resounded through the clearing once more, and when Adi turned around Pan and Max were standing before empty space.

"Well," said Pan with a wry smile. "That was devastatingly unhelpful."

* * *

On the shore on the opposite side of the island they arrived — Peter referred to it this way in his mind because the phrase _slammed into the ocean_ sounded a little too on the nose — Adeline and Max and Felix stood with him, looking out on the remains of what was once Skull Rock.

It still held the distinctive skull shape for which it was named, but it was dark inside where there was once eternal fire flickering, and some of the rock around its eyes had begun to crumble, leaving wide yawning holes that gave it an expression of perturbed surprise. The water surrounding it was unnaturally still.

"We're going to have to swim," Adeline was the first to point out the glaringly obvious with her mouth twisted into a frown, an expression she seemed to have cemented onto her face since their arrival.

"It should be shallow," was all Peter replied with as he pulled off his jacket and waded into the still tide.

"Let's hope so," she said, still scowling like she hadn't quite liked the taste of her own words.

The two of them were-waist deep when Peter realized that Max was not following. He turned and raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"Uh...I can't swim."

"Wonderful. Felix?"

The blonde gave a sharp nod. "You two go. I'll stay here with him."

Adeline had not been listening, because she was already halfway to the rock, treading the motionless water with ease. The ends of her dark hair blended in with the dark water; it looked like she was melting into the sea.

Peter followed after her, and they didn't speak until they had reached the rocky shore, and even then the only word exchanged was Adeline's command of "Up," and a quick jab at the stairs. They squeezed out their clothes, which had been wet from landing in the water before but were soaked yet again.

Here, he remembered as they ascended, was where he had nearly died. It was not a particularly pleasant memory to recall in the darkness of this cavern, and he pushed it aside as best he could.

Adeline stood in the center of the main cavern and held a hand out before shoving it back into her pocket — she couldn't create fire here anymore.

Peter understood how helpless she felt. It felt like yesterday that they had experienced the height of their power. But now, standing in this room, weaponless and magicless, it was easy to feel powerless again.

In the corner, on a pedestal of rock, were the remains of the golden hourglass in an unassuming pile of shattered glass and splintered wood. It had once been so glorious, so powerful, so unstoppable, and now it was nothing more than rubble.

From the center of the wreckage, Adeline finally looked at him again. "I don't see how this is going to work."

"Have a little faith, love." He lifted the vial of brown pixie dust from his pocket where he kept it safely guarded with magic — in this realm, the protection spell had dissipated. "The Shade said if there's any residual magic it would be here."

Adeline shot him a flat glance. "Sounds like bullshit to me."

Quickly growing irritated with her pessimism, Peter said, "Well, it's all we've got. Besides, remember that Peter Pan never fails."

"Maybe two years ago."

Peter acted affronted as he began rifling through the debris of the hourglass for a glimmer of gold. "I will be eighty years old and will still never have failed, Adeline!"

She shook her head, but she was smiling despite herself. "Whatever you say."

So much had changed, and yet she was almost the same as she had been that night he had found her in the forest all that time ago, the snow still melting in her hair and the copper coin clutched in her hand. It was odd to think of her that way now, helpless and confused.

"Hey!" she caught his attention as she straightened, looking down at her palm. "This might be what we're looking for...?"

Peter gingerly crunched his way over to her. She held something that emitted a strange golden glow unlike anything he had ever seen before. In the dim light of the cavern — and the ghost of the island itself — it was one of the only colors he had seen in the past few hours. A pulse of hope shot through him.

In her hand was a golden orb of _something_ , something Peter couldn't put a name to but knew was special. Whatever had created Neverland in the first place, this was it. This was the thing that fueled the hourglass, fueled the island's immortality — that great, wonderful power had been reduced to nothing but this marble-sized mass in the ruins of an island made of ash.

Adeline's face glowed with the light of it. It illuminated the exhaustion lining her pale face.

"Are you okay?" Peter asked her, though he knew the answer long before she opened her mouth.

"Yes," she said shortly. "We should go. This place depresses me."

She led the way back out, cradling the thing in her palm for a moment before shoving it unceremoniously into her pocket. At the rocky shore, she cast one glance back at Peter. She was easy to read, but this expression was utterly undeterminable: _I'm lost_ it seemed to say, but offered nothing else.

A quick swim over left them dripping yet again, but neither paid any mind as they sloshed out of the tide together and stood before Max and Felix, Adeline holding the golden orb and Peter holding the lackluster vial.

Max arched an eyebrow. "I'm sorry, this solves our problem how?"

Adeline looked inclined to agree with him, but Peter shot her a glare that made her shut her mouth. Then he said, "This is the last of this realm's magic. If we mix it with this pixie dust, it should give us enough power to go back. The Shade said that because this place is like a remnant of the Neverland we took to the Enchanted Forest, we shouldn't need a bean. They're connected. The dust should be enough."

Both Max and Adeline looked characteristically doubtful, but Felix was nodding — which was exactly what Peter needed. After all, he and Felix were the ones who had been in charge so long ago, and they weren't dead just yet.

"Do you have any better ideas?" Felix defended, and Peter felt a surge of appreciation for his best friend. "Do it, Peter."

Adeline handed over the orb, but Peter held it away from the dust for a moment and looked out at the ocean, then over the scarred shell of the island. It was awful to see it this way, and he wasn't sure if he'd be able to look at the real thing the same way after seeing what they had left behind.

"We've stolen everything from this place," Adeline said quietly.

Max was the first to get over it. "Alright, let's roll," he said. "I got a hot date."

Adeline cracked a smirk. "What?" she teased, "Slightly finally said yes?"

"I swear to god —"

But in the midst of their talking, Peter had already uncapped the vial and poured the brown dust over the gold; it turned iridescent green midway to his palm, and when the vial was empty he chucked it on the ground and said, "Everyone shut up. It's time to leave."

Without stopping to think about it, he threw the orb and the activated dust on the ashes between their feet and waited, and before he could begin to think that perhaps it wouldn't work, that they were truly going to be stuck here forever, the ground was rushing up to meet him and the last he saw of Neverland's corpse was what he thought was light flickering in the gaping eyes of Skull Rock.

* * *

The real Neverland had never looked so beautiful. Adi found herself laying in soft sand, staring up at a marvelous sunrise that painted the sky burnt orange. The colors seemed so vivid, so tangible after the perpetual greys of Neverland's realm.

For once, she was thankful to see the Enchanted Forest across the water.

 _Home_ , she thought, and this time she meant it.

"Where do you think everyone is?" Max asked. He was already on his feet, absently twisting a dagger around his index finger, looking about them at the empty stretch of beach and the edge of the jungle.

"What the fuck!" A familiar female voice rang out from across the sand. "Where the hell have you been?"

At the edge of the forest stood a familiar collection of faces, and Adi laughed as she stood because she hadn't realized how much she missed them until this very second.

Leading the pack were Devon and Slightly and Kara, who had called to them, one of the few girls who had joined them. In the morning light, her copper skin shone. Shadowing her as always was Maeve, fourteen, the youngest of them now that the boys had begun to age — but despite this she was one of the fiercest.

Adi loved her siblings, utterly and irrevocably. Staring at them, bathed in the sweet autumn sun, she clung to this thought and began to move toward them. Max and Felix was already on their way over, the former heading for Slightly and the latter casting glances back toward shore.

But a hand fell on her arm and pulled, tugging her back toward the water. She turned to meet eyes with Pan, and the very sight of him made her ache.

She loved him too, but differently, and she wasn't quite sure what to do with that information.

"You're afraid to die," he stated."That's what the Shade meant."

"I'm not afraid to die," she fired back, defensive.

"Maybe not," Pan agreed, nodding. "But you're afraid to live, and is there really a difference?"

Adi couldn't tell if she was simply easy to read or if he was simply good at reading her.

"What do you mean, afraid to live?"

Pan offered her a small smile, and the sight of it alone was comforting. "You still have your youth, and that's going to last a very long time. And you have us. You have me."

It was strange to be comforted in this way because she had said something similar back when he was the one giving up a lifetime of immortality. She had acted confident then, and it was blowing back up in her face now.

Pan studied her, looking her in the eyes. Emerald clashed against sapphire, but they weren't at war anymore. "You're afraid," he repeated: a statement, not a question.

Adi stared back, determined, fearless. She allowed nineteen to fall upon her, felt it consume her, let it hurt; and she embraced the pain because it would make her stronger. Each year would hurt more, but she would give each year a reason to hurt in return, because Adeline Morris had known as soon as she turned a day past seventeen that she would not go quietly.

"Of course I am," she answered. "But that's never stopped me before."

Then she smiled at him, pure and true, and ran across the sand toward her family, toward home, toward the future. She didn't look back. She already knew Pan was following her.

* * *

 **hello! i know this story is a couple of years old, but i was struck with some random inspiration between words for the draft of my original story and had to write it. i considered a sequel, but thought this epilogue/one-shot may suffice. adi is one of my favorite characters i've ever written, and it was interesting to revisit her as well as the boys after she's aged the same amount of years i have since i last wrote her.**

 **thank you for reading! let me know what you think - i'll probably edit this later, but for now i'm just happy to have finished it.**

 **x steph**

 **[posted march 2018]**


End file.
